First responders arrived at a gruesome accident scene on a rural stretch of Kentucky highway following a tragic collision that claimed 11 lives.  A tractor-trailer crossed the median of the interstate and struck a van head-on, resulting in the deadliest crash involving a commercial motor vehicle since 1988.  The National Transportation and Safety Board will be investigating this crash, specifically looking into the practices of the trucking company, Hester Incorporated, and its driver, who also died in the crash.  The NTSB will likely be looking into whether Hester Inc. was in compliance with the regulations set forth by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.  The Board should also have an interest in reviewing the professional qualifications of the truck driver.

The design of that particular stretch of highway may also be investigated.  The median that was crossed was protected by a cable barrier.  The tractor-trailer, which was heavily loaded with auto parts at the time of the crash, plowed right through the cable median and into oncoming traffic.  Investigators admit that a cable barrier of this type is not designed to stop a 60,000+ pound truck at highway speeds.  One wonders whether a concrete barrier could have mitigated the losses sustained in this tragic fatal truck crash.

A truck accident injury lawyer would request the DOT medical card and previous medical records of the truck driver to determine if the driver was medically qualified to operate a tractor-trailer.  Due to a shortage of qualified truck drivers, commercial trucking companies are placing medically-unqualified drivers behind the wheel.  These drivers can become easily distracted by prescription medications and infirmities that would have likely been caught by a DOT medical examiner, possibly preventing the crash all together.

A car remained pinned underneath an 18-wheeler on Interstate 35 near the 20th street exit in Kansas City as emergency responders worked on extricating the occupants inside the trapped vehicle.  The southbound lanes of I-35 where closed for over an hour and traffic was diverted around the scene.  Responders report that a young child and two adults were injured in the truck crash.  Authorities continued to investigate the scene after the victims were transported to an area hospital.  Weather in the Kansas City area on the morning of the crash was wet. 

Serious truck crashes involve a large quantity of evidence that must be protected.  If a Kansas City truck crash lawyer does not immediately demand that evidence be preserved, a future claim for compensation may be diluted due to destroyed data which is critical to the claim.  A tractor-trailer has a black box known as an "electronic control module" (ECM) that stores data immediately following a hard brake or collision.  An immediate ECM download is critical in determining what the 18-wheeler did just prior to the collision.  Speed, location, direction of travel, throttle, gearing, and additional information is recorded and stored on a truck's ECM at the time of the impact.

If you are injured in a serious truck crash, you may able to obtain compensation by filing a Missouri truck crash injury claim.  If a truck driver is careless and causes a crash, both the driver and trucking company are legally liable to the injury victim.  Missouri law allows truck crash injury victims to seek compensation for pain & suffering and economic damages.

Authorities are still investigating the causes of a morning tractor-trailer crash in Franklin County Missouri that claimed the life of a young girl.  The crash occurred in the early morning hours Friday morning when traffic on Interstate 64 was already backed up due to an earlier accident.  A white tractor-trailer slammed into the back of another large blue truck that was idling in the previously slowing lanes of traffic.  The impact caused significant damage and claimed the life of a young 3 year-old toddler that was riding in the passenger seat of the white truck.  49 year-old Catherine Stults was driving the white tractor-trailer that slammed into the back of the blue tractor-trailer that was being operated by Timothy Williams.  The 3 year-old was eventually identified as Andrea Witherspoon of Cape Girardeau.

One of the most common type of serious tractor-trailer crash involves the situation where a truck inadvertently crashes into traffic that is slowing or stopped ahead.  Causes of this type of collision can include defective brakes, fatigue, or impaired line of sight.  Missouri has seen is share of serious wrecks of this type, including the fatal truck crash which occurred on Highway 64 near the Mason Road exit in West County.  The shear force and inertia of 60,000+ pounds of weight into a stopped object has devastating results.

Visit the truck accident injury website at Schultz Legal Group for helpful information and resources.  Don't be victimized twice.