Every driver has a basic duty to respond to a road hazard on a public road or highway. Professional drivers are held to an even higher standard.
A truck driver who fails to take necessary and appropriate action can cause a lot of pain and damage. That is what happened to Constance, a client of attorney Kevin Coluccio.
Driving through fire causes massive semi-truck collision
The high desert in the eastern part of Washington is subject to brush fires. On the day of Constance’s crash, an area of a major highway was covered with black smoke from a brush fire.
Constance was driving down the highway. Seeing the black smoke and poor visibility conditions ahead, she slowed down. She pulled into the right lane, and stopped behind other vehicles that had also pulled over for safety.
A semi-truck driver was heading down the same highway, towards the same brush fire.
But, instead of joining the other vehicles that pulled over, the trucker drove into the “black out.” He completely disregarded the dangerous conditions and lack of visibility, and crashed into the stopped vehicles.
His failure to respond to the brush fire resulted in a multi-vehicle semi-truck collision. Some of the folks in stopped vehicles had minor injuries. Others – including Constance – were hurt very badly.
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Rules of the road exist for a good reason
The truck driver who caused the pile-up violated a countless number of rules of the road.
As an operator of a commercial vehicle, he had duties rose far above the duties of regular drivers.
He failed at every level when he drove his truck and trailer blindly into the brush fire“black out” at a high rate of speed. Constance – and many other drivers – had known to pull over, but the professional trucker even didn’t bother to slow down. The damage done to Constance’s vehicle shows the speed in which the truck driver entered the “black out”.
This is just one example of what happens when drivers think the rules of the road don’t apply to them.
Attorney Kevin Coluccio has been working in truck crash law for more than 30 years. See the extended version of this blog post and learn what happened to Constance: Life after a huge tractor-trailer collision in a highway “black out”
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