As someone who is keenly interested in safety – safety on the roads, safety in the sky, safety in the workplace – it sometimes feels like one can’t stress the importance of certain basic safe practices often enough. To that end, even though I just blogged about a tractor trailer blocking the travel lanes of a roadway, I feel compelling to reiterate the point. The reason? Another horrific tractor trailer – automobile collision where the truck was across a travel lane – this time, right in my proverbial backyard in Maryland.
On July 22, 2013, a Virginia woman was critically injured when her car violently collided with a tractor trailer that was attempting a left turn across the travel lanes of a highway. Kristin Rosso, a 28 year old young woman from Annandale, VA, sustained critical injury when her car struck a tractor trailer at the intersection of US 40 and Md 144, near Hagerstown, MD in Washington County. Ms. Rosso had to be airlifted to Shock Trauma in Baltimore for her injuries.
Police determined that the truck was traveling westbound on US 40, and was attempting a left turn onto Md 144, going across the eastbound lanes. Ms. Rosso’s car, headed eastbound, struck the cab of the truck in the eastbound lanes. The force of the crash was so great that the front end of Ms. Rosso’s vehicle was sheared off.
This crash remains under investigation, and fault has not yet been assigned. However, it would appear that the truck had no business initiating its left turn, if the Rosso vehicle was so close that it collided with the cab of the truck. Again, drivers need to be absolutely sure that they will not impede oncoming traffic before blocking a travel lane going the other way.
The Lietz Law Firm has considerable experience with commercial trucking cases where vehicles have obstructed the roadway. We employ trained and skilled experts to help us figure out what exactly happened in such situations, and who is at fault.
