Accidents between passenger vehicles and heavy commercial trucks usually end with fatalities and/or severe injuries. The protection offered by the body of a car or pickup truck is just not robust enough to protect occupants against the impact of a truck that could weigh thousands of pounds. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation announced that the Hazleton police had to attend to two separate truck accidents on a recent Thursday morning.
The first crash called first responders to Humboldt on Route 924 at approximately 5:30 a.m. State police said a 23-year-old driver of a sedan smashed head-on into a tractor-trailer as it turned left into a gas station. The 50-year-old operator of the big-rig suffered no injuries, but the car’s driver was rushed to a medical center with serious injuries. A passenger in the car suffered minor injuries. While police were investigating this crash scene, a call came in about another wreck on Interstate 81 in Sugarloaf Township.
The second accident occurred at about 7 a.m., and it involved five vehicles and a tractor-trailer. Under circumstances that are yet to be determined, the truck apparently crashed into five vehicles. Firefighters said the impact caused a pickup truck to flip over and the big-rig then pushed it into an SUV. Multiple people suffered injuries, one of which was a woman who was trapped underneath the semi. With both the investigations still ongoing, the severity of the injuries is unknown.
Whenever people suffer injuries in truck accidents that resulted from the negligence of other parties, they may seek recovery of damages through the Pennsylvania civil justice system. Victims can file personal injury claims in a civil court, but they will have to establish negligence before the court can determine financial liability. If a truck driver is the person deemed responsible for the injuries of accident victims, both he or she and any separate owner of the truck can be named as defendants. Successful presentation of such a claim may lead to a monetary judgment to cover documented claims.
Source: citizensvoice.com, “Multiple-vehicle crash closes I-81 south“, Nov. 3, 2016