An accident involving a dump truck has led to two deaths and three injuries in the Cajon pass in California last Tuesday. The accident happened at the junction between the I-15 and Highway 138. According to the report on the accident, the dump truck hit a PT Cruiser carrying several teenagers as it exited from the I-15. The PT Cruiser was traveling on the westbound side of highway 138. The PT Cruiser was rolled by the dump truck and eventually came to rest with the truck on top of it.
The truck driver was uninjured during the accident, but all five occupants of the smaller vehicle were injured, two of them fatally. An eighteen year old girl and sixteen year old boy were found dead at the scene, while the three other occupants were taken to hospital with injuries.
The cause of the accident is still being investigated, although one of the injured PT Cruiser passengers said he did not see the dump truck stop as it came off the off ramp of the I-15. Vehicles exiting from an on-ramp onto another highway would normally be expected to yield the right of way to any vehicle already on the highway. In this case, the dump truck would have been expected to stop or at least slow down to allow the PT Cruiser traveling westbound to pass.
The investigation has not been completed and the truck driver has not released any public statement. He is reported to be a subcontractor, working for CalTrans.
Accidents like this happen so often they rarely get much of a mention in the media. The only accidents that seem to get much traction are those that involve celebrities. Yet two young lives have been lost and many people – friends and family – will be grieving those losses and will be wondering what these kids might have achieved if they had survived. Three young people have also been injured and at this stage it is not clear how serious the injuries are to two of them and how the accident – a terrifying ordeal for most ordinary people – and the injuries will affect them in the future.
The double tragedy of vehicle accidents like these is that not only do innocent victims suffer from someone else’s negligence, they also have to keep paying financially during the recovery phase until such time as the negligent party has been identified and forced to pay compensation.
Personal injury lawsuits are often long drawn out affairs and can take years to come to settlement. The following questions still must be answered:
Who or what was to blame?
Was the driver of the truck fatigued or distracted?
Did he not see the other vehicle?
Did the truck’s brakes fail?
Was there something wrong with the truck’s steering?
Was maintenance on the truck not kept up to schedule?
Was there any other reason why the accident happened?
As for accident victims, if they have been injured and have retained a personal injury attorney to help them recover compensation for their injuries and any pain and suffering attached to the accident, then they can also apply for legal funding from a lawsuit funding company. These types of financial transactions (lawsuit loans) are available when injured accident victims need cash to pay for day to day expenses or immediate medical bills and are likely to be short of money until they recover their costs if the lawsuit is successful.
In order to arrange a pre-settlement loan from a lawsuit lender, there must be an active lawsuit or claim pending, an attorney must be retained on a contingency fee basis, and the case must be approved for funding by the lawsuit funding company.
The good news is that there is no upfront cost to apply, no credit checks and no limitations whatsoever on how the lawsuit loan is spent. Best of all, the money is only repaid if and when the lawsuit is successful.