Truck accident kills 4, injures 4

A fiery five-vehicle crash that happened on June 25 killed four people and injured four others on Interstate 40 in West Tennessee. The Tennessee Highway Patrol says that an earlier accident had slowed down traffic just west of the Brownsville exit in Haywood County between Jackson and Memphis.

As a westbound Lexus slowed around 3:30 p.m., a semi-truck failed to do the same and struck the back of the car, pushing the car into a second semi-truck, which hit the back of a third semi-truck that was hauling two trailers. The first truck then swerved into a Ford sedan in the next lane before hitting the third semi-truck’s front trailer.

The Kentucky couple and both people in the Lexus died at the scene. Additionally, every vehicle except for the second semi-truck caught fire, and the driver of that truck suffered no injuries. One local resident claimed that when she passed the crash shortly after 5 p.m. after the lanes were reopened for traffic, and all she could see was the steel from the trucks’ trailers.

Police credited speed as a contributing factor in the wreck. However, they did not immediately issue any citations.

Truck accidents often cause severe injuries or even death because of the large sizes of the vehicles involved. Liability can be an issue if the driver of a commercial vehicle causes an accident. If the truck is owned by the driver, then an injured parties could seek a settlement from that driver’s insurance provider. If the truck is owned by a company for which the driver works, then the company might be held liable. A personal injury attorney could negotiate with the applicable insurance provider for a settlement that covers the injured party’s accident-related expenses.

Source: The Jackson Sun, “Report on cause of crash released,” Katherine Burgess, July 2, 2014

Source: Kentucky.com, “4 killed, including two from Kentucky, in fiery crash in West Tennessee”, June 26, 2014