Witnessed Colision between Transfer Trucks on Interstate - Who Gets the Ticket?

[Beltzington]

Last weekend while I was westbound I saw a 40' Box Truck (eastbound right lane) and a Semi Tractor trailer (eastbound passing lane) collide. I did not see what caused the accident only the results. Box truck went off the right side of the interstate and the Semi went into the center median. Both of them went over the cable barriers and considering they were doing at least 65mph both drivers did a heck of a job to keep from rolling.

The accident occurred adjacent to a merge lane from a busy overpass. My best guess is a passenger vehicle with the typical clueless or distracted driver was merging eastbound and either entered the right lane or the Box Truck driver thought they were going to enter his lane and he swerved into the passing lane and impacted the Semi who he did not see.

Who do you think gets the ticket, I have seen no reports on this accident. I have no doubts the driver of the passenger vehicle would be at fault but since I did do see any other vehicles involved in the collision my gut tells me the Box Truck driver was cited for an unsafe lane change. Had he maintained his lane and hit the passenger vehicle the guilty would have been punished.

Anyone have a different take on the matter?

 

[texasjohn]

Too much speculation here to take an informed position.

In theory, if someone fails to merge safely with traffic, they are the ones at fault. I bet that there are lawyers who can make it be otherwise. Speeding or intoxication or other circumstances play into it.

 

[Looking4new]

I think I would have to agree with you on the unsafe lane change.

 

[Rock knocker]

Who do you think gets the ticket

Since all you can do is baseless guessing about the cause, I would say you get the ticket.

 

[aczlan]

In theory, if someone fails to merge safely with traffic, they are the ones at fault. I bet that there are lawyers who can make it be otherwise. Speeding or intoxication or other circumstances play into it.

Could be, however, if they didn't contact the truck, they will probbaly not be found to be at fault.
I know a truck driver who was going down a steep hill and had another truck pull out right in front of him. He managed to avoid the other truck, but jackknifed and got a nasty dent in the corner of his sleeper. The officer said that because there wasn't any contact, the truck who pulled out was classed as not being involved in the accident, no ticket, no (legal) responsibility to fix the damage.

Aaron Z

 

[texasjohn]

Could be, however, if they didn't contact the truck, they will probbaly not be found to be at fault.
I know a truck driver who was going down a steep hill and had another truck pull out right in front of him. He managed to avoid the other truck, but jackknifed and got a nasty dent in the corner of his sleeper. The officer said that because there wasn't any contact, the truck who pulled out was classed as not being involved in the accident, no ticket, no (legal) responsibility to fix the damage.

Aaron Z

Well, seems it all depends.....

My adult son began pulling into a roadway when a speeding vehicle came around the corner, driver panicked, ran off the road into the ditch and came to a controlled stop not in driver's lane. No contact between cars, car in ditch hit nothing, there was water/mud in ditch thus it was a sliding stop, not an extreme stop, ditch was shallow, thus no embankment hit. Son got a "failure to yield" ticket. Lady driver insisted on being taken to hospital. On the way, the ambulance was also involved in an accident where it touched fenders along the side of a car traveling in the same direction. Again, no extreme impact, scratches and dents in fenders only.

The lawsuit, settled after 4 years without trial, resulted in about $15,000 to the lady driver from son's insurance company and ambulance insurance...$30,000 total, approximately.

I guess you can sue over anything if you can find a lawyer willing to take the case...and there always will be one. In this case, the suit was filed the last day of the statute of limitations. A year later, that lawyer passed away...fatal burns from backyard barbecue...don't add fire starter to a burning fire! Next lawyer was fired after a year or so of delays. Next law firm, listed on back of yellow pages, lawyer messed around for a while, then firm fired the novice lawyer just out of law school, assigned another lawyer who settled in 2 weeks since the court date was about a week away.

I think both insurance companies simply made a business decision to settle for less than continued lawyer fees and maybe the lady driver and her lawyers finally realized that a court battle wasn't going to yield her a million dollar settlement and big cut for the law firm.

The whole thing was quite an education in how our legal system works....

 

[DABSGT]

Well, seems it all depends....

Texasdon you are correct it all depends, in some accidents a non contact vehicle, as a vehicle entering highway on the right, will not be ticketed but listed as a contributing factor, no ticket but there is still liability. And we all know that lawyers are also known as Ambulance chasers for that 331/3%. Out of the 45k the woman in your sons accident received the law firm received 15K to settle before going to trial.

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[aczlan]

I think both insurance companies simply made a business decision to settle for less than continued lawyer fees and maybe the lady driver and her lawyers finally realized that a court battle wasn't going to yield her a million dollar settlement and big cut for the law firm.

Could be. The individual in question has been known to keep talking when he should shut up as well, so that may have been a contributing factor in the other guy not getting a ticket...

Aaron Z

 

[texasjohn]

DABSGT, I think my description confused things .... total settlement was about $30k, thus likely legal fee was $10K....nevertheless, they got paid for doing a very sloppy job....all paperwork was late, sloppy, poorly worded, filled with technical and factual errors.

Having spent my career in the computer industry where precision, accuracy, completeness and timeliness were expected and the norm, I was appalled to experience this from "professional" , educated and "responsible" people. The only encouraging thing was that I could take small comfort in this being the work of the "other" side. My lawyer, same one for the entire time provided by my insurance company, was much better, although he, too, fell prey to a careless secretary and made some mistakes which I upbraided him for.

 

[DABSGT]

Texans john, I don't want to sound like I am bashing lawyers there are several very good, articulate and honest individuals in the profession. But as a constitutional law instructor once said " law schools just keep pumping lawyers out some are good, some chase ambulances and those who can't earn an honest living become politicians!" Lots of truth to that.

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