Not Every Truck Accident Makes The Houston News
Just because you don’t hear about an accident on the Houston evening news every night, doesn’t mean they’re not happening.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, nearly 4,000 people die in accidents with large trucks every year across the nation. The leading cause of these truck accidents is driver fatigue. Unfortunately, not all of these accidents make the national news because the lives lost or the parties injured aren’t celebrities or they are not always in the Houston area.
It may seem like semi-truck accidents aren’t newsworthy. After all, not every accident makes it on the evening news. But when an average of 10+ people per day are losing their lives in truck accidents, it’s a big deal.
Some of the Accidents That Didn’t Make the News
It’s easy to dismiss the numbers of the people that have died when you can’t match a story to the tragedy. To help us relate more, here is a small sample of the life-changing accidents in 2015 from around the country.
On April 22, 2015 a truck driven by John Wayne Johnson barreled through a line of cars backed up by an earlier truck crash on Interstate 16 in Georgia. Johnson killed five nursing students from Georgia Southern University headed to their last training shift of the year. Lawsuits filed over the wreck say he had sleep apnea and a history of falling asleep at the wheel. He also may have been looking at pornographic pictures.
On May 19, 2015, witnesses saw a tractor-trailer drifting between lanes as it neared a construction zone on that same Georgia interstate, near I-95. The driver, David Gibbons, 61, smashed his rig into stopped cars and also killed five people.
On June 25, 2015, Benjamin Brewer, 39, spent 50 hours at work and was allegedly high on meth when he approached construction traffic on I-75 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He was going so fast, his truck careened on for 453 feet after impacting the first car, according to the NTSB. He killed six people.
On July 23, 2015 (Huffington Post), trucker Ruslan Pankiv failed to notice traffic backed up at a construction zone on I-65 near Lafayette, Indiana. He plowed through the stopped vehicles, killing five people, including a mother, her two young sons and himself. Again, police suspected fatigue.”
Keep in mind, these are just 4 stories of the almost 4,000 lives lost in these types of accidents. There are still another 3,990+ more stories just like these.
[videosingle id=”8366″ width=”100%” height=”400″ rel=”false” /]
If you have been injured or lost a loved one in an accident with a commercial truck, contact The Callahan Law Firm today for a free case evaluation.
Michael S Callahan is an attorney and founder of The Callahan Law Firm. He focuses his practice on representing individuals and families in personal injury cases involving motor vehicle and truck accidents, workplace accidents and defective products. With over 25 years of experience, he is dedicated to fighting on behalf of people whose lives have been forever altered by the negligence and carelessness of corporations and individuals. Originally trained as a mechanical engineer, Michael has been practicing law and fighting for justice for those who need it most since 1994. He is board-certified in Personal Injury Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and a member of various esteemed legal associations. Outside of work, Michael enjoys spending quality time with his family, outdoor activities, and continually striving to improve as a trial lawyer and human being.
