Flatbed Trucks can cause Devastating Accidents

At about 11:30 p.m. on May 28, 2015, 29-year-old Jonathan Astaphan was driving his Mitsubishi and 17-year-old Liza Angulo was driving her BMW along I-75 in Broward County when they both tragically died in a horrific accident involving a flatbed truck. The truck was carrying large sections of a concrete barrier on its trailer and the driver pulled onto the freeway from a construction zone when there was traffic coming. Both Astaphan and Angulo crashed into the trailer. The impact took off the roof of Astaphan’s car and, additionally, huge pieces of concrete fell off the trailer through the windshield of Angulo’s car. They both died immediately.

Astaphan was a third-year medical student set to graduate in 2017, while Angulo had recently graduated from high school and was driving her graduation present. Both were mourned heavily by family, friends, students, and the community.

Risks of flatbed trucks

Commercial trucks can weigh up to 80,000 pounds as compared to the average passenger vehicle that weighs about 3,500 pounds. Due to their sheer size and weight, tractor-trailers have a high risk of causing serious injuries or fatalities if they are involved in a collision with a small car or similar vehicle. Flatbed trucks can pose an even higher risk of devastating accidents because of the type of trailer and the nature of the cargo commonly hauled by this type of truck.

Flatbed trucks typically carry over-sized or extremely heavy items that would not conveniently be loaded into a traditional trailer. While this cargo is supposed to be properly secured, there is still a high chance that it can fall off the trailer due the impact of a collision. Additionally, sometimes trucking companies fail to properly secure the cargo at all because they may believe the weight of the items will be enough to keep them in place. This may have been the case in the above accident since the concrete pieces fell so quickly off of the trailer onto the young girl’s car. When cargo falls off a flatbed truck, it may not only fall onto other vehicles, but also onto the roadway. This can cause oncoming cars to collide with the cargo and cause additional, possibly chain-reaction crashes.

Drivers of flatbed trucks should be extremely cognizant of the risks that come with collisions and should always take adequate care to drive in a safe manner. The same goes for the individuals responsible for loading the dangerous cargo onto the flatbed trailer and securing it. If any party acts negligently and injury occurs in a flatbed truck accident, injured victims deserve to recover for all of their injury-related losses.

Call a Boca Raton personal injury lawyer for a free consultation

At the law office of Lavalle Brown & Ronan in Boca Raton, our attorneys understand how complicated commercial truck accidents can be. We have the resources to stand up for your rights to recovery against large trucking companies, so please do not hesitate to call our office at 888-646-1315 to speak with one of our experienced lawyers for free today.

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