Icy road accidents kill, injure and strand motorists
- December 20, 2013
On Dec. 8 in New York, an enormous vehicle pileup took place on the Bronx River Parkway just north of New York City at about 11 p.m. Thirty-five people were injured; however, according to the Westchester County Police Department, injuries were less serious than they could have been due to the fact that the vehicles were all traveling slowly.
On the same day near Morgantown, Pennsylvania, a pile-up on the Pennsylvania Turnpike involving 50 vehicles left the driver of one of those vehicles dead and stranded motorists in the dozens for seven hours during a snowstorm. The deceased driver died when he was struck by another vehicle after exiting his car at approximately 12:30 p.m.
There have been several other highway closings and stranded motorists due to weather on the Arizona-Utah border and along Interstate 81 in Maryland. In west Texas on Interstate 10, there was a fatal multi-car pileup that left dozens of motorists stranded in their cars for 26 hours. One traveler, who was headed to Dallas Fort Worth Airport with his wife and their toddler, said that they were stuck near exit 380 for 11 hours and on the highway for 26 hours. He also said there was two inches of ice covering the whole road.
When bad weather and unsafe road conditions lead to serious car accident injuries for drivers, insurance claims might be denied based on allegations that those drivers were possibly driving too fast for the conditions. It might be possible for a legal professional to use the official accident investigation reports to prove that the accident was unavoidable.
Source: ABC, “New York Car Pile-Up Latest in Series of Icy Crashes“, Liz Fields, December 09, 2013