July 23, 2010

Baltimore Trucking Accident News: 18-Wheeled Trash Hauler Overturns on Maryland’s I-95 near Columbia, MD

Highway traffic accidents involving semi-tractor trailers and other large commercial trucks happen hundreds of times a year. Some of those crashes result in injuries to one or more people. Still others can cause death or permanent injury to occupants in smaller, less massive motor vehicles such as minivan, sedans, economy cars and motorcycles.

Statistics also indicate that larger vehicles, such as tractor-trailer rigs, are more likely to be involved in serious multiple-vehicle collisions than passenger cars. This data also tells us that injuries resulting from truck accidents can be much more serious and many times fatal. Common injuries include spinal cord damage, severe brain trauma, broken bones and other serious and permanent bodily harm.

As Maryland trucking accident attorneys, I and my staff know that any multi-vehicle accident can be fatal, with some causing mostly minor, yet significant injuries. Although people can physically recover from such minor wrecks, even those associated medical costs can become a burden to a family already strapped for cash.

A recent accident along Maryland’s Interstate 95 near Route 32 was one of the luckier types of 18-wheeler wrecks as it resulted in few serious injuries. However, it did show that there is always potential for disaster any time, any where.

According to news reports, the southbound portion of I-95 near Columbia, MD, was the site of a flipped 18-wheel trash hauler. Vehicles of this size can weight as much as 50,000 to 80,000 pounds depending on the type of cargo being carried. In this case, the truck was traveling along the entrance ramp to I-95 South around half past seven in the morning. As the driver of the rig negotiated the ramp connecting Route 32 to I-95, the vehicle suddenly overturned for some reason. Debris was scattered across all lanes and southbound traffic had to be stopped.

There were no serious injuries, although the truck driver likely required some attention. Because the it was an open trailer, debris was scattered all across the southbound lanes of I-95.


I-95 Southbound In Maryland Reopened After Tractor Trailer Carrying Trash Overturns, WUSA9.com, June 29, 2010


April 14, 2010

Maryland Trucking Accident News: Family Vacates Home following Garbage Truck Crash in South Baltimore

Apparently trucking accidents can occur anywhere, even when you’re family is supposedly safe at home. That’s what happened not long ago when the driver of a trash collection truck apparently lost control and slammed into the front of a South Baltimore home. As a Maryland personal injury lawyer, I have helped many people following the aftermath of semi collisions and tractor-trailer crashes on our highways and surface streets.

Although most truck-related crashes involve other vehicles, this particular accident caused massive damage to a family’s home. It is only by shear luck that no one was seriously injured in the incident. Accidents involving large commercial vehicles can range from minor abrasions, to deep cuts and bruises, contusions, neck and spinal damage, or traumatic brain injuries.

According to reports, the family who house was damaged did receive help from the city, who owns and operates the garbage truck that hit the structure. The city’s housing commissioner was told by the mayor to do “everything possible to help this family."

In response, the city reportedly moved the family into a hotel, which is in Towson and too far from work and school for the family, which doesn’t own a car. There is apparently no close bus line which the parents can use to get to work, and their five-year-old grandson can’t easily get to school, which is located back in their Southwest Baltimore neighborhood.

Still the damage to the home is estimated at $30,000, according to news reports. In fact the structure itself had been boarded up and at the time of the reports was condemned. Based on initial reports, the garbage truck peeled away the front brick and the actual front of the home is mostly gone. The house has been boarded up and condemned.

Only time will tell if this family gets their home back in its original condition and can resume their lives with as little upset as they already have experienced.


City Helps Family After Home Hit By Trash Truck Reporting, WJZ.com, March 3, 2010

March 11, 2009

Anne Arundel County woman tragically killed in accident with truck

The Baltimore Sun reports that Christine D. Schoppert, 33, of Pasadena, Maryland was killed driving her five year old daughter to nursery school on Tuesday morning. Schoppert stopped her Nissan Maxima to make the left turn into the Creative Garden Learning Center on Ordnance Road when Brian Weatherley’s Chrysler Concord rear ended her. The collision forced Schoppert into the path of an oncoming garbage truck and both vehicles caught fire.

A passerby on his way to work, Coast Guard Petty Officer First Class, Lavelas Luckey, spotted the smoking Maxima and quickly rescued the child from the car. The child was transported to Johns Hopkins Hospital where she is being treated for life threatening injuries.

Although the police are still investigating the circumstances surrounding the accident, this story reminds of something that I was taught in my driver’s education course. The instructors taught us that when stopped waiting to make a turn off of a roadway, a driver should keep a vehicle’s wheels pointed forward until they begin to make the turn. If a car has its wheels turned in one direction or another and is struck from behind, the impact will force the car in the direction the front wheels are pointed.

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