When we hear about traffic accidents on the local news, or notice articles about collisions as we scroll through our Facebook feed, road debris usually doesn’t come up as a cause of accidents. For the most part, debris gets mentioned as an effect in the aftermath, such as when a truck spills its contents after a collision. And yet, road debris is a serious contributing factor to vehicular accidents.
A recent study from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety reports that between 2011 and 2014, road debris led to over 200,000 crashes in the US. Even though most of these accidents didn’t result in bodily harm, there were still roughly 500 deaths and 39,000 injuries.
Did road debris contribute to your traffic crash?
Road debris can contribute to accidents in a variety of ways. Items loaded onto cars and trucks can fall into the path of oncoming traffic. Branches may break and land on the road during a storm. Passenger vehicle drivers and motorcyclists may encounter anything from discarded furniture to broken bottles tossed out on the road.
Accidents can result from direct collisions with debris or from attempts to swerve and avoid it. Debris can also destroy tires, causing vehicles to go out of control.
When evaluating these kinds of accidents, it’s important to determine how much the debris really contributed to the course of the accident. For example, a crash may have been caused primarily by reckless driver behavior, with the debris playing only a secondary role.
If debris did contribute to the crash in some way, it’s important to ask who might have left it on the road, and who had the responsibility of cleaning it up in a timely way. For example, if an item fell out of a truck, you would need to investigate if the individual or company responsible for loading the truck secured the items properly.
For further questions about these kinds of accidents, please contact us at 844-Take-MyCase or through our website, www.844TakeMyCase.com. Feel free to also reach out to us on Facebook, and follow us on Facebook for further discussion about important issues related to vehicular collisions and road safety.
Tags: accident attorney, accident lawyer, anne arundel county accident attorney, anne arundel county accident lawyer, anne arundel county personal injury attorney, auto accident, automobile accident, charles county accident attorney, charles county accident lawyer, charles county personal injury attorney, d c accident attorney, d c accident lawyer, dc accident attorney, dc accident lawyer, eastern shore accident attorney, eastern shore accident lawyer, injury attorney, injury lawyer, kent county accident attorney, kent county accident lawyer, mary's county accident attorney, mary's county accident lawyer, maryland accident attorney, maryland accident lawyer, Maryland personal injury attorney, maryland personal injury lawyer, montgomery county accident attorney, montgomery county accident lawyer, motorcycle accident, oxon hill personal injury attorney, prince georges county accident attorney, prince georges county accident lawyer, prince georges county personal injury attorney, st, traffic accident, traffic crash, truck accident, virginia accident attorney, virginia accident lawyer
