Posted March 2, 2010

By wsfb.com

STAMFORD, Conn. — A man was killed in a Tuesday morning collision with a tractor-trailer on Interstate 95 in Stamford.

Police said a Toyota Sienna driven by Xiaoyuan Huang, 28, was either stopped or traveling slowly in the right, northbound lane of Interstate 95 before 5 a.m. Police said Clarence Edwards came up behind Huang’s vehicle in a tractor-trailer. They said Edwards attempted to swerve around the Toyota, but struck the rear of the car.

The Toyota went into the roadway’s right shoulder, striking a metal guardrail. The tractor-trailer traveled into the median and struck the barrier, police said.

Huang was extricated from his vehicle and taken to Stamford Hospital, where he later died. Edwards was uninjured in the crash.

The crash, which closed northbound lanes of the roadway for hours, remains under investigation.

Tom Bowen said he commutes to Stamford from Long Island, usually on Interstate 95, but said he took back roads on Tuesday.

“I used to work in the local area and I know the local roads,” he said.

Posted December 21, 2009

By Mike McIntire, the New York Times

By the time Bryan Lee headed to work along Highway 51 in Texas on Sept. 15, 2005, the road-building industry and its government overseers were painfully aware of a deadly, though easily corrected, construction hazard: pavement-edge drop-offs.

Accidents involving dangerous drop-offs kill about 160 people and injure 11,000 each year. Numerous studies have shown that the steeper the drop-off, the greater the danger.

In Texas in 2002, seven people were killed when a car slipped off a sharp edge of roadway and onto the shoulder, causing the driver to overcorrect into the path of a minivan. Four years before, six people died in a succession of accidents in another Texas work zone, where contractors had failed to smooth out the edge of a newly paved lane.

Yet when the contractors repaving Highway 51 west of Fort Worth discovered that they lacked sufficient equipment, they decided to pave only part of the roadway and finish the rest days later, leaving a sharp drop-off that ran for miles within the travel lane. A state inspector warned that it was dangerous, but no one — not his superiors, not the contractor — listened.

Two days after that warning, Mr. Lee, a 26-year-old oil field worker with a wife and two young sons, rounded a curve in the early-morning darkness, and the wheels of his Suzuki motorcycle slid off the asphalt edge. He tumbled from the bike and was run over by a pickup truck.

The deadly accident was one of thousands in highway work zones across the country that have killed at least 4,700 people — more than two a day — and injured 200,000 in the last five years alone. Ubiquitous annoyances of on-the-go American life, work zones are sometimes death traps, too.

Behind this human toll is a litany of mundane hazards: concrete barriers in the wrong position, obsolete lane markings left in place, warning signs never deployed.

Yet there are virtually no laws or regulations mandating safety measures in work zones. There are standards, but they are loosely enforced and differ from state to state. As a result, there are few penalties levied against contractors when, because of ignorance, carelessness or a desire to save money, guidelines are violated. Problem contractors often just keep on getting hired, and dangerous practices remain uncorrected, sometimes for years.

Ultimately, the hazards persist through a kind of collective indifference, a presumption that, given the crush of traffic and the vagaries of driver behavior, accidents happen.

But interviews and internal government documents, along with a review of more than 100 legal cases involving work zone crashes around the country, illuminate a more complex calculus of blame — one that often encompasses the actions of the construction industry and its regulators as well.

“A lot of work-zone crashes are entirely preventable,” said David Holstein, Ohio’s chief traffic engineer. “It’s not explainable by just driver error or inattention. We can intervene to keep them from happening.”

After transportation officials in Ohio created a system to monitor work-zone crashes in real time, they were startled to discover that the presence of construction caused accident rates to jump as much as 70 percent, Mr. Holstein said.

“We were seeing that crashes were happening day after day after day, and nothing was being done about it,” he said. “Sometimes there were hundreds of crashes over the life of a project.”

Now the stakes are increasing, as $27 billion from President Obama’s economic stimulus package is prompting a nationwide boom in highway construction. Federal transportation officials are concerned that work-zone fatalities, after declining in recent years along with traffic deaths in general, could rise again.

“The number of people killed as a result of crashes in work zones remains significant,” the Federal Highway Administration says on its Web site. “Safety and mobility impacts from work zones will likely be magnified with the infusion of a large number of new projects.”

Transportation officials are responding pretty much as they always have: by focusing primarily on drivers. States have raised fines for speeding in work zones, cracked down on drunken or distracted drivers and stiffened penalties for killing or injuring highway workers, even though roughly 85 percent of those killed in work zones are motorists.

Posted November 30, 2009

By:  WNCT.com

A tractor-trailer carrying 45-thousand pounds of hydrochloric acid overturned on a Kansas City interstate Monday morning (11/30), snarling traffic and prompting the city to open its Emergency Operations Center.

Clouds of hazardous gas escaped from the trailer and an unknown amount of acid spilled from the tank. The nearby Isle of Capri casino was not evacuated, but those inside were asked to remain inside the building.

Traffic on Interstate 35 was completely blocked on the Paseo Bridge, and was snarled in both directions during the morning rush hour.

Hazmat crews were called in to contain the spill and clean up the area.

Firefighters pulled the driver of the truck from the cab. He was transported to an area hospital, but was alert and responsive. Two police officers were hospitalized for skin and throat irritation.

Kansas City Police and the Missouri Highway Patrol were unsure of how soon the bridge would be reopened.

By Mari A. Schaefer

Inquirer Staff Writer

The driver of the car who was huffing before she struck two pedestrians, killing one outside Delaware County Memorial Hospital pleaded guilty today to homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence, aggravated assault and a drug charge.

Rachael Jankins, 20, of Havertown was sentenced to four-and-a-half to 10 years in prison. She also received six years probation and will have to pay more than $18,000 in restitution.

 On Aug. 14, Jankins’ car struck Nicole Gallo, 19, of Clifton Heights, and Christine Bochanski, 20, of Lansdowne. Gallo was killed instantly. Bochanski needed surgery for a broken back.

 According to court documents, Jankins told police that at the time of the accident she was distracted while changing a song on her iPod. She admitted to police that she had drunk whiskey and smoked marijuana the night before. Her blood tested positive for marijuana and difluoroethane, a chemical in compressed air used to clean computers.

Posted November 13, 2009

By Jessie-Lynne Kerr, jacksonville.com

A Circuit Court jury in Flagler County Thursday returned a $5.1 million verdict in a wrongful death case stemming from a 2006 fatal collision between a fully loaded tractor-trailer and a Honda minivan.

Ingrid Falkenstein, 67, who had just retired to Palm Coast with her husband, David Falkenstein, was killed instantly in the wreck. Her husband suffered a pelvic fracture among other injuries.

Falkenstein’s attorney, Steve Pajcic of Jacksonville, presented evidence that showed trucker Christopher Angland of Palatka, driving for McMaster Sod LLC of Bunnell, ran a stop sign at Cody’s Corner. The accident occurred about 6:30 p.m. May 18 at the well-known but isolated intersection in the southwest part of the county.

The defendants argued that the county was at fault because of poor signage at the intersection and a failure to replace worn rumble strips approaching the stop sign.

But the jury placed 60 percent of the blame on the driver, 40 percent on McMaster and none on the county. Pajcic said some of his most compelling evidence was a Valentine’s card that Falkenstein gave his wife in the first year of their 33-year marriage that pledged, “Our happiness is our wealth.”

Pajcic urged the jury to place the same value on their long marriage as the couple had themselves. He argued that reckless driving by a tired trucker had robbed the couple of their golden years of retirement.

Posted October 24, 2009

By ANDREW STRICKLER, newsday.com

A dozen New York City firefighters were hurt – including a seriously injured driver who was trapped in an overturned vehicle – when two trucks rushing to a gas leak collided in a Brooklyn intersection Saturday morning, officials said.

Witnesses described a deafening collision between Engine Company No. 236 and Ladder Company No. 107 at the corner of Ashford Street and Hegeman Avenue in the East New York neighborhood.

The 9:43 a.m. crash caused the ladder truck to flip on its side and slide into a tree, trapping the hurt driver inside for about two hours as dozens of emergency personnel worked to free him. The engine ended up over a curb and onto a front lawn.

Everett Groves, 63, the superintendent of a building at the intersection, said he was outside when he heard sirens.

“I see this engine coming this way, I mean flying . . . horns blowing,” he said. He described the engine, which was headed west on Hegeman Avenue, hitting the rear of the ladder truck, which was headed north on Ashford.

“The impact was tremendous,” he said. “You know the impact had to be something to hit that truck off the ground.”

All 12 firefighters on the two trucks required medical attention. Four were seriously hurt, and eight had less serious injuries, according to an FDNY spokesman.

The driver of the ladder truck, identified as firefighter Robert Puppa, remained trapped until about noon, and Lt. Kevin Washington, a 27-year veteran, suffered an unspecified skeletal injury, possibly a broken leg, fire officials said.

Both were in serious condition at The Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center.

Other firefighters were taken to Kings County Hospital Center and Jamaica Hospital Medical Center. They were still there late Saturday, a department spokesman said. An NYPD spokesman said the investigation was continuing.

Mark Brown, 46, an electrician who was walking to a supermarket at the time, said the engine “slammed on the brakes” but was not able to stop in time. “It was not a yield,” he said.

FDNY spokesman Jim Long said both trucks were responding with sirens and lights to a gas leak emergency in the 700 block of Warwick Street, one block west of the crash site.

Long said the gas leak was legitimate but could not immediately say who responded.

Station houses for Engine Company 236 and Ladder Company 107 are about a mile from each other and within a mile and a half of the crash site.

Firefighters at the ladder company’s station house on Lincoln Avenue refused to comment.

Posted October 25, 2009\

By Gary Taylor, Orlando Sentinel

One teenager was killed and six others injured early Saturday in a single-vehicle accident on E. Michigan Street at Center Avenue in Orlando.

Brandon Wesley Wise, 17, of Orlando, is the 22nd person to die in a traffic crash in Orlando this year, Orlando police Sgt. Barb Jones said this morning.

Wise was the driver of a 1997 Jeep sport utility vehicle involved in the crash that occurred about 1:20 a.m., Jones said.

Wise was eastbound on Michigan in the left through lane when he attempted a left turn onto Center at a high rate of speed, Jones said. The SUV overturned and came to rest in the parking lot of a business at the intersection. Wise, who was wearing a seat belt, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Passengers in the vehicle all suffered minor injuries. Jones identified them as Pablo Rodriguez, 15; Emily Aleman, 16; Kassandra Lopez, 16; Bianca Rodriguez, 16; Alexander Ortiz, 17; and Sabastian Viloria, 16, all of Orlando.

Reported by: Ozarksfirst.com
Tuesday, Oct 6, 2009 @08:32pm

(Miami, OK) — More legal trouble for a truck driver from Willard.

Donald Creed pleaded not guilty in Oklahoma a few weeks ago to negligent homicide. He’s charged with ten misdemeanor counts for that crash on I-44 that killed ten people.

It was back in June when Creed was behind the wheel of his semi and slammed into a line of stopped cars on the Will Rogers Turnpike.

Now, according to the Associated Press, the victims’ families are suing him and his employer, Associated Wholesale Grocers.

The Oklahoma Highway Patrol found no evidence that Creed tried to brake before hitting the cars.

Published October 5, 2009

By KEN THOMAS (AP)

WASHINGTON — Toyota Motor Corp. officially recalled 3.8 million vehicles in the United States on Monday to address problems with floor mats that could cause the gas pedal to stick and cause a crash.

The automaker formally informed the federal government of the recall in a letter Monday. It will be Toyota’s largest U.S. recall and the country’s sixth-largest recall, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The recall includes 2007-2010 model year Toyota Camry, 2005-2010 Toyota Avalon, 2004-2009 Toyota Prius, 2005-2010 Tacoma, 2007-2010 Toyota Tundra, 2007-2010 Lexus ES350 and 2006-2010 Lexus IS250/IS350.

Chris Santucci, Toyota’s assistant manager for technical and regulatory affairs, wrote in the letter to NHTSA that there are 3.8 million vehicles involved but “this estimate is subject to change as Toyota refines the number of affected vehicles by model.”

Toyota told the government it has not determined that the vehicles “contain a ’safety-related defect’ within the meaning of the federal safety laws” but would notify owners of the safety campaign.

Santucci wrote “there is a potential for an accelerator pedal to get stuck in the wide open position due to an unsecured or incompatible driver’s floor mat. A stuck open accelerator pedal may result in very high vehicle speeds and make it difficult to stop the vehicle, which could cause a crash, serious injury or death.”

Toyota announced last week it would recall the vehicles and warned owners to remove the driver’s side floor mats and not replace them until the company determined a way to fix the problem.

The massive recall was prompted by a high-speed crash in August involving a 2009 Lexus ES350. California Highway Patrol Officer Mark Saylor, 45, and three members of his family were killed when their vehicle hit speeds exceeding 120 mph, struck a sport utility vehicle, launched off an embankment, rolled several times and burst into flames.

Family members made a frantic 911 call from the Lexus and said the accelerator was stuck and they couldn’t stop the vehicle.

In Japan, Toyota President Akio Toyoda said last week that the fatal crash was “extremely regrettable” and offered his “deepest condolences.”

Toyota said in the letter it would tell owners of the affected vehicles to take out the driver’s floor mat and not replace it with another floor mat until model-specific remedies are developed. Toyota said it expects to begin notifying customers by first class mail in late October and complete its mailing in December.

When it figures out a fix for the problem, Toyota will notify owners “about the availability of a free remedy.” The automaker told the government it did not have a firm schedule for the second notification but would provide the government a schedule as soon as possible.

If a vehicle accelerator pedal becomes caught on the floor mat, Toyota recommends the following steps:

_ Reach down and pull the mat back from the accelerator. Then pull over and stop your vehicle. If you can’t dislodge the pedal or it seems unsafe to do so, press on the brake with both feet. Then shift the vehicle into neutral, which will disengage the transmission. Continue braking until you come to a stop.

A driver can also try shutting off the engine or turning the key to the “ACC” position on the ignition. You won’t lose control of steering or the brakes. But once the vehicle is turned off the driver won’t have the benefit of power brakes or power steering.

                On October 8, 2008, a Yeti Airlines was attempting to land at the airport in Lukia, Nepal when the main landing gears snagged a security fence.  The plane crash and caught fire.  Eighteen of the nineteen persons on board were killed.  Only the pilot survived.

                The day before, a Qantas Airbus made news when it suffered a sudden drop in altitude while in flight.  Although there were no fatalities, 36 people sustained spinal injuries, broken bones and lacerations.

                On August 20, 2008, there were 154 fatalities when an airliner taking off from Madrid, Spain swerved off the end of the runway, crashed  and burst into flames.  There were only 18 survivors.      

                The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on October 17, 2008 that the National Transportation Safety Board recommended that the F.A.A. require inspections of jets with the Pratt & Whitney PW2037 engine after a Delta flight from Las Vegas on a Boeing 757-232 had to return to the gate after the pilot heard a loud bang and saw that the right engine had lost power.  Missing lugs and cracks were found in the turbine hub.  Cracks in the turbine hubs of American Airlines planes were also found.             

                Statistically, air travel is one of the safest means of transportation.  However, accidents do happen.   When an aircraft is involved in an accident, the results can be devastating.  One crash can be catastrophic to thousands of people including the victims, their family members and friends. 

                If you or a loved one has been the victim of an accident, you need an attorney with the skills and experience to determine who was responsible for this tragedy.  There can be many causes for a plane crash, such as: pilot error, failure to maintain the vehicle, equipment failure, negligence from an air traffic controller,  defective equipment or design. 

                Our firm has been representing the victims of accidents for over 25 years and has worked with many outstanding attorneys.  If you, or a member of your family, have been the victim of an aviation accident,  I invite you to fill out an online consultation form or engage in an online chat. 

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