Tractor Trailer Speed in Curve Cause of Woman’s Death

A tractor trailer’s excessive speed in a curve was blamed for the big rig tipping over May 2012, killing a woman en route to pick up the diploma of her daughter who had graduated from high school earlier that week, according to a report by Robert Salonga in the San Jose Mercury News.

In San Jose, California, taking an exit on I-680, Hieu Huynh was  riding in a Toyota Camry driven by her daughter. The daughter saw a truck coming and tapped her brakes to create some space.  She didn’t see the rig tipping over, but her mother did.  The mother told the daughter to veer left, just as the big rig trailer filled with broccoli crashed down on top of the passenger side of the Camry, killing the mother.

According to the California Highway Patrol, the tractor trailer was going too fast in the curve.

Investigation in trucking crashes often extends beyond what happened immediately on the roadway. We often find that a pattern of disregard for safety in the management of the trucking company is an underlying factor. It may involve negligence in hiring, training and supervision of truck drivers, failure to adequately monitor compliance with hours of service rules, and failure to monitor driver speed and operations.

In Georgia, we represent families and individuals in serious neck and back injury, burn injury, brain injury, amputation injury, spinal cord injury, fracture injury and wrongful death  cases arising from tractor trailer and big rig crashes.

Ken Shigley is past president of the State Bar of Georgia (2011-12), double board certified in Civil Trial Advocacy and Civil Pretrial Advocacy by the National Board of Legal Specialty Certification, and lead author of Georgia Law of Torts: Trial Preparation and Practice.  His Atlanta-based civil trial practice is focused on representation of plaintiffs in cases of castastrophic personal injury and wrongful death.