Articles Posted in Car Accidents

Most drivers have at some point encountered a foreign object in the road. Sometimes it is part of a tire, which came from a semi tractor-trailer after a blowout. Other times, it is part of a car. In a fair amount of cases, it’s furniture that obviously fell off a car or truck someone was trying to transport without proper tie-downs.

Hopefully, if you are ever in this situation, you can safely take evasive maneuvers and avoid the large object, and do so in a way that does not cause an accident or injury to any other cars on the road or pedestrians walking along the sidewalk.

In some cases, you may be tempted to stop and move the object. But it really is much safer to simply call the police or highway patrol and let them deal with the situation. While this may take slightly longer that you doing it yourself, it is much safer because emergency crews are equipped with road flares and other equipment to alert other cars of an upcoming person or object in the roadway.

According to a recent news article from WWLP News Springfield, state troopers are searching for two drivers in connection with a fatal car accident that seemed to be caused by a wheelbarrow being left in the middle of the roadway. Investigators are still reviewing the facts, but they have released information on the 32-year-old victim who was killed in this tragic accident. They believe he sustained fatal injuries when he was thrown from his car, and it rolled over, after he swerved to avoid crashing into the wheelbarrow.
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The time between Memorial Day and Labor Day is known as the “100 Deadliest Days” for teen drivers, as we typically see an large increase in the number of serious and fatal car accidents involving teen drivers during this period. With this year’s 100 Deadliest Days for teen drivers now underway, it is important to look at the cause of many of these preventable car accidents and what can be done to keep our teens safer on the roads this summer.

According to a recent news feature from Wicked Local Scituate, more than 66 percent of all people injured or killed during these 100 days are not the teen drivers behind wheel. It should be noted, we are talking about large numbers of car accident victims during this period. For example, in 2013, over 371,000 people were injured and nearly 3,000 were killed in car accidents involving a teen driver.

The CEO of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, said with more teens on the road during the summer season than other time of year, this is a good time to remind people who are driving, walking, or riding bicycles to take additional care and safety precautions when they see teen drivers nearby.
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A rollover accident is one of the scariest and most jarring experiences an occupant of a vehicle can have. It can also be one of the deadliest.

According to a recent news article from the Hamden Patch, a driver and passenger were killed in a rollover car crash on the Massachusetts Turnpike.

Authorities say the single vehicle accident occurred on an early Sunday morning. When officers arrive at the accident, they found a van, which had lost control, rolled over, and ended up in the median.

They found driver, a 43-year-old roadie for a Massachusetts-based band, had already died from injuries prior to their arrival. The passenger, the band’s drummer, was also seriously injured in the crash. First responders provided immediate medical attention before transferring him to a local level-one trauma hospital. His injures were considered life-threatening at time of his arrival, and he eventually succumbed to his injuries and died.
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One of the primary causes of car crashes is driver error, or in the terminology of a car accident lawsuit, defendant’s negligence. While we often the use the term accident, many accidents are truly not accidents, but someone’s fault.

However, some accidents are not due to a driver’s fault but are, instead, due to a manufacturing defect in a car, truck, or motorcycle, and some car accidents are the result of negligently performed repairs or routine maintenance at a dealership or private service station. When there is a suspected manufacturing defect, car makers will often send service bulletins to dealerships to be on the lookout for a particular issue. If the defect affects a safety system or other system that is likely to result in a car accident, the manufacturer is required to initiate a recall of all potentially affected vehicles. Some of these recalls are voluntary and others are non-voluntary, as they are ordered by a state or federal agency.

According to a recent news release from Consumer Reports, Ford has now issued a recall on nearly 600,000 vehicles. The largest of these recalls involves the 2013 to 2015 Ford Fusion and Lincoln MKZ sedans as well as the Ford Edge SUV. These vehicles were built with a defective motor attachment for the steering gear. The bolts used on this attachment are susceptible to corrosion, and, once corroded, they have been shown to fracture. After the bolts fracture, the power steering mechanism could fail, and the driver would have to manually control a vehicle without assistance from hydraulics, as was common on cars built before the 1960s. For those who have never driven a manual steering vehicle, it may be difficult for them to physically turn the wheel in time to avoid a serious car accident. At slower speeds such as driving in traffic, it might be practically impossible to turn a modern car through an intersection, thus putting it at risk of being hit by other car.
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According to a recent news article from WCVB Boston, a wrong-way three-car collision occurred on Interstate 93 just north of Boston. Massachusetts State Police troopers believe an 80-year-old man from Lynnfield, Massachusetts was driving a 2013 Acura in the wrong direction on the highway when he crashed into a 2006 Jaguar and older Chrysler.

After the collision, the Chrysler apparently caught on fire before first responders arrived on the accident scene. Firefighters were able to suppress the car fire, and EMTs provided immediate medical attention for the two victims before transporting them to a local hospital for further treatment. Fortunately, it is believed they were not seriously injured as a result of this three-car accident. The 80-year-old driver who was allegedly traveling in the wrong direction to cause the Boston area car crash was not injured in the accident, and police have not issued any traffic citations in connection with this incident, though they are continuing to investigate.
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According to a recent news report from the Boston Globe, a 34-year-old man from Western Massachusetts was killed in a single-vehicle car accident. Authorities say he was driving a 2000 Nissan Maxima when he lost control. His vehicle hit a large wood utility pole and then ran into a tree on the right side of the roadway. This accident occurred around 11:45 p.m. near Route 20 in Brimfield.

Authorities do not know why the vehicle lost control and are continuing to investigate the cause of the fatal car accident.

Cases involving only a single vehicle may require far more investigation than police are often willing to perform. This is not to blame police, as they have many important duties to perform and may lack resources and personnel to fully investigate every car accident. In situations such as these, since there is no other victim claiming negligence, or accusing someone of drunk driving, officers may simply conclude an investigation when cause is unknown, or in worst cases, assume it was driver error.
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