A massive crash involving three trucks closed down the I-880 Nimitz Freeway in San Leandro, California on Thursday.

According to news reports, the truck accident was actually set off by a passenger car, which suffered a tire failure, and veered off course. One truck, which belonged to Waste Management in Alameda, veered to avoid the car, and in doing so, went over the divider. It landed on a truck that was delivering caskets, and flattened it. That driver was killed instantly. The garbage truck then struck a tow truck. That truck also suffered extensive damage.

According to news reports, the area was a fiery scene with flames from the big rig explosion clouding the sky for hours after the truck accident. All northbound and southbound lanes were closed to traffic, until the wreckage could be hauled away.

As of now, the driver of the casket truck is reported to be dead. He worked for the Batesville Casket Company, and has not been identified. The garbage truck driver also was killed, and he has been identified as Victor Mercado of Oakland. Early reports were vague as to the reason for his flight over the divider, but later news reports confirmed that a car in his path had veered off course, sending him off tangent too.

Like in most other truck accidents, when there’s a big rig involved, damage is extensive, and the loss of life is severe. Truck accidents almost always have devastating results, and this has been no exception. For now, it’s still too early to ascertain if there were other factors that contributed to the garbage truck’s jackknifing through the divider. Was there speed involved for instance? A garbage truck is a monstrously heavy vehicle, and for it to go over so easily suggests a lack of control by the driver. Investigations are still underway, however, and in the coming days we might have more details about the truck accident.

Whenever there is a truck accident, there is always an element of destruction. The force of all those tens of thousands of pounds of weight is enough to flatten lesser vehicles. Occupants of these other vehicles have a very slim chance of escaping alive or with modest injuries. Most often, death is instant, and injuries are life threatening and debilitating. Public opinion is constantly against the presence of these monster vehicles on the same road as other smaller sized vehicles. The odds of surviving a collision with a big rig are stacked too heavily against smaller car owners. We have to find a way for big rigs to not be such a destructive presence on our highways.

The Reeves Law Group is a law firm with offices throughout California dedicated exclusively to the representation of personal injury victims, including victims of truck accidents. Please visit our website at trlglaw.com. If you desire a free consultation on a personal injury matter, please call us at (800) 644-8000 or email us.

A Seaside man was killed in a head-on collision with a drunk driver on Highway 156 in Santa Clara County. This accident is just one more example of the way in which drunk drivers can cause accidents. The kind of reasoning impairment and poor reflexes that alcohol can cause is enough to cause an accident even if you were not speeding or driving recklessly.

In this case, 48-year-old Renard Phillips was driving his 1995 Cadillac sedan eastbound on the highway. The car suddenly veered off the road and hit a guardrail. After this, it came back onto the roadway into the westbound lane, where the drunk driver, 39-year-old Los Banos resident Rosendo Ramirez, was driving his big rig truck. He was westbound, and driving a 1998 Peterbilt truck owned by True Leaf Farms in Salinas. Ramirez was intoxicated, and could not respond fast enough to avoid the sedan. His truck crashed into the sedan, and Phillips was killed at the scene. He was found trapped in the vehicle when emergency workers arrived and had no pulse.

After hitting Phillips, Ramirez’ truck crashed into concrete railway before coming to stop, he did not sustained injuries in the accident. He was given a sobriety test, and when his blood alcohol limit was found to be higher than the legal limit of 0.08 percent, he was arrested on charges of drunk driving.

Details from the California Highway Patrol investigation report are not known at this point, but whatever the blood alcohol content of Ramirez, it’s confirmed that he was in a state of intoxication above the legal limit. He might not have been driving above the speed limit; he might have been only minutely above the blood alcohol limit. Regardless of these things, it’s definitely a possibility that had he been in full control of his faculties and completely sober he would have been able to avoid the sedan.

When you’re in charge of a monster big rig on a busy road, it’s not just necessary, but life and death essential that you be fully aware and completely sober. A truck involved in an accident almost always causes higher rates of injuries and fatalities than a smaller passenger car. The nature of the injuries sustained in a truck accident are also severe.

For these reasons, Ramirez has much to answer for. There is no excuse for getting into a truck and driving when you are not completely and 100 percent sober. The potential to cause harm and injury to others is too great.

If you or a loved one have been the victim of a drunk driving accident, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury attorney. Contact a lawyer at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

The parents of a 17-year-old boy, who was injured in a truck accident when he was 14, have been awarded a total settlement of $15.07 million by the Southern California Gas Company (Sempra). The accident involved a Sempra truck and the car in which the boy, Kyle Tilton, was riding.

The accident took place on November 2nd 2005 in Yucca Valley, California. Kyle was in a car being driven by his mother, Charlotte Tilton. His mother made a left turn at Twenty Nine Palms Highway in Joshua Tree. A Sempra truck, driven by Darryl Whitley, ran a red light and slammed into the vehicle.

The side of the car that Kyle was sitting took the full force of the accident. He suffered various injuries – including head injuries, fractured ribs, collapsed spleen and liver, and multiple pelvic factures, beside other injuries. He was unresponsive at the scene, and spent the next few days at the hospital. He was in intensive care for 8 days. His mother, Charlotte, suffered only minor injures. Kyle hasn’t completely recovered from his injuries. He continues to undergo brain rehabilitation therapy, and although his quality of life has improved, there is a long way to go before the now 17-year-old boy can hope to have a full life again.

The family bought a lawsuit against Sempras. The company fought its liability until the very first day of trial, and refused to offer a sum that could be acceptable by the family in order to settle. The matter then went to jury, and now the verdict has come back in favor of the plaintiffs. $3.57 million was awarded to Kyle for his medical expenses in the future, which are expected to be huge. A sum of $1.07 million has been paid for his future loss of earning, and $10 million has been awarded for his pain and suffering. The jury also awarded Kyle $1.34 million for his past medical expenses and $21,960 in past family services. His mother, Charlotte, who cited emotional distress at witnessing the near death for her son, also has a claim in the lawsuit. She has been given $270,000 for her pain.

Sempra insists that the only reason they allowed the case to go to trial is because they had conflict with the cost of caring for Kyle. The jury had obviously no such conflict. They have awarded the boy more than $3 million for his future medical expenses. Kyle’s parents are satisfied with the verdict, and hope to use the money to further his rehabilitation therapy so he can gain back control of his life.

If you have been injured in a car accident, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury attorney. Contact a lawyer at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

In a cluttered yard in Los Angeles, California, body shop workers put the finishing touches to a crack on a big rig that’s obviously seen better days. A simple fix-it repair job, it’ll cost the truck driver a mere $700, as opposed to a getting it fixed the proper way at a dealership, where the costs would run up to $3,000. Not only is the cost lower, the trucker will have his rig back in a day at most, unlike the dealership, which involves a two-week waiting period.

According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, there are numerous such instances of truckers getting their rigs repaired at fly-by-night repair shops in the city. Open lots and yards are being converted to repair shops to make quick fixes to trucks that ply Los Angeles’s ports. The quality of the repairs and the level of workmanship are doubtful at best, but for the truckers, most of who struggle to put food on the table, it’s the best they can do.

The risks for the truckers themselves and for others sharing the roads with them are too high to imagine. At a tire retreading shop for instance, one employee does a quick 20-minute job of getting a tire retreaded, a process that requires careful precision to avoid cutting into the steel belt. A truck with a damaged tire could be a disaster waiting to happen and yet, for many of his profession and others like him in the truck repair business, safety is second.

Keeping tabs on these independent truckers, who are reportedly 16,000 in number, is tough, as they ply from and towards the Los Angeles and Long Beach port complex, the busiest in the country. In recent years, the Long Beach Freeway that connects the port with the rail yards has seen truck accidents increase dramatically. At least 2,000 accidents take place annually in the stretch and 600 of those involve trucks.

The California Trucking Association distances itself from the rogue methods employed by truckers to carry loads at the expense of road safety in ill-maintained rigs, but the truckers themselves say they aren’t to blame. Intense competition for jobs means that you either ply the road with your truck even if it badly needs a servicing, or have another equally badly-maintained truck ready to take your rig’s place.

For most of the truckers, life is a constant cat and mouse game of avoiding the California Highway Patrol checks, and they create devious means to avoid the fines imposed. Many days they are lucky relying on well-intentioned messages from their trucker friends to avoid a particular checkpoint. Other days, they are not.

At risk, are the thousands of other users of the highway, who are exposed to constant dangers from these trucks.

If you have been injured due to faulty parts on a semi truck, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury law firm. Contact a lawyer at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

We’ve always known of the dangers that speeding big rigs driven by fatigued or careless drivers can pose. We’ve known of one too many accidents where entire families that were unlucky enough to come in a big rig’s path were destroyed. But their massive size and crushing weight are not the only dangers that big rigs pose on California’s highways. Runaway trailers – trailers that break loose of the truck – are a little known but equally dangerous threat to the safety of motorists across the state.

A Los Angeles Times report outlines some of these accident cases which although infrequent are similar in one terrifying aspect – they all cause unimaginable destruction. Out of the 540 runaway trailer crashes recorded since 2000, 164 resulted in deaths while hundred of injuries were caused.

Like what happened to Spencer Morrison and his triplets. Ever the protective dad, Morrison made sure his precious kids rode around in the finest car seats and purchased the safest minivan he could find. On April 13, 2006, as the 37-year-old father drove with his kids strapped into their car seats in the back, a 3 ton wood chipper broke loose from the big rig it was attached to and hurled itself into incoming traffic, and right into the Morrison family’s vehicle. The mini van was smashed beyond recognition. Spencer and two of his kids died instantly. Only one boy survived with massive head injuries and skull fractures.

It turned out that the driver had not only neglected to secure the wood chipper to the big rig, but also had not secured the chains that are supposed to hold the trailer in place when the hookup fails.

Most runaway trailer related accidents in California had one thing in common. They were more likely caused not by a single blunder but by a series of errors, as in the case of the trailer that killed Morrison. Motorists unlucky enough to be in the path of one of these trailers-on-a-rampage are the usual victims. Other victims include pedestrians or children waiting at the bus stop.

Experts say that drivers should be responsible for safety precautions before setting out on the road with their massive cargo. They should be held accountable for negligence in fastening the trailers to the trucks or big rigs, they argue. But police say that checking each and every trailer to see if it’s secured firmly just isn’t a feasible solution.

Meanwhile, these machines keep getting loose on California’s roads.

If you’ve been injured in a truck accident or know someone who has, don’t delay. Call the California truck accident attorneys at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation on your case today.

A jury at the Maricopa County Superior County has returned a verdict of $36.5 million, including $13.5 million in punitive damages, against Phoenix-based Swift Transportation Company. The verdict is related to the fatal truck accident in Kansas City that killed 57-year-old Thomas Steven, a father of eight children, in July 2004.

The lawsuit filed by Steven’s survivors relates to the crash involving a truck operated by Swift Transportation Company. Steven was driving his Chevrolet Suburban when the truck driver, Kevin Jones, speeding at 65 mph on Kansas 61, ran a stop sign and crashed into the Suburban. Steven was killed while two passengers in the same car were seriously injured.

In his argument, the Stevens’ attorney argued that Swift Transportation Company did not make available driver logs it was supposed to maintain under federal laws. The failure of the company to provide these logs made it difficult to deny the possibility that Jones may have been physically fatigued as he cruised down the highway, thereby causing the accident.

Driver fatigue is one of the factors most closely associated with truck accidents. Due to the very nature of their jobs, truck drivers are required to clock in long and continuous hours of work. Federal law requires that driver logs be maintained and drivers made to stick to stipulated driving hours to reduce the possibility of truck accidents due to fatigue.

If you’ve been injured in a truck accident, you will need expert legal guidance in order to be able to claim compensation for your suffering. Call the California accident and injury attorneys at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation on your case today.

A large number of truck accidents can be traced back to the overall health of the driver at the time of the accident. The trucking profession is not generally known for the high standards of fitness members are required to maintain. After all, with their long hours and frequent stops at unhealthy roadside fast food stalls, health related problems in the profession have long been regarded the norm. A new reality TV show, in fact is aiming to change all that. Country Music Television is featuring a line up of real life truckers who are being put on a strict diet and exercise schedule to slice off the pounds and makeover their stressed out and overworked lives.

It’s not hard to figure out the connection between poor trucker health and the number of truck related accidents on the roads. Obesity can contribute greatly to sleep apnea, a condition in which a person may stop breathing during sleep for as long as 10 seconds. Sleep apnea manifests itself in other symptoms like drowsiness in the daytime, fatigue and forgetfulness – all potentially lethal symptoms when you consider the person might be driving an 80,000 pound big rig. Overweight truckers also suffer from driver fatigue, another major cause of truck accidents.

The correlation between poor truck health and the increasing number of big rig accidents hasn’t been lost on the powers that be. California Senator Diane Feinstein recently called for greater efforts to be made to address common problems like driver fatigue that could be responsible for the recent rise in big rig accidents. Among other things, she proposes on-board computers that automatically log when a driver is driving so he doesn’t drive for more than his stipulated 14 hours a day and 10 hours of driving non stop.

In California, most of the major trucking companies are located in the Ontario, Fontana and Colton areas. Already an Iowa based trucking company is offering its drivers a new health plan that includes fitness and nutrition coaching as well as tests to determine the existence of conditions like sleep apnea. Efforts like these are commendable, and signify a deep rooted commitment to decreasing the likelihood of truck accidents. One hopes California’s trucking companies will also follow suit.

A truck accident can cause substantial damage to the vehicles involved besides resulting in massive personal injuries and death. If you’ve been injured or lost a loved one in a truck accident, contact the California truck accident lawyers at The Reeves Group. Initial consultation is free and you don’t pay unless we win a settlement for you.