A crazy Missouri truck accident last Friday afternoon on US Highway 36 sent an unbelievable 46,000 pounds of beer pouring over the freeway.
Labor Day revelers were no doubt disappointed to hear the news – one can just picture Homer Simpson weeping upon learning about the spill. But the situation is certainly no laughing matter, even though (thankfully) no one was injured or killed in the disaster.
The beer truck driver was on route from Cameron to St. Joseph on the westbound lane of US Highway 36 (near Stewartsville), when the truck had difficulty with a turn and tipped on its side. The beer cargo doused the road. Nothing was salvageable. As the driver himself put it: ìIf any of those cans open up, since it’s under pressure, it sprays all over everything else, and the bacteria and stuff that can come from that, they normally will just condemn the whole load.î
A ìnear-missî disaster that could have easily been much worse
When stories like this appear in as ìNews of the Weirdî items in American papers, most people smile or just shrug – it’s unusual and interesting for ìquirky stuffî to fall off trucks.
However, the story also illustrates a much more sobering and scary reality, which is that many loads on trucks in Missouri, Illinois and elsewhere are not effectively secured. It’s one thing if hundreds of cans of beer roll off a flipped over truck, and the only “injury” occurs to the truck driver’s pride. It’s another thing entirely when a truck’s load comes loose and causes an injury or a fatality.
What’s particularly scary and frustrating about these kinds of events is that, once a truck loses its load on the road, it can be very difficult to trace that lost load back to a liable party.
For instance, say just a few cans of beer fell off the truck, since the cans hadn’t been secured properly. Then two hours pass. Eventually, another driver speeds into the beer cans and, in shock, flies off the road and suffers a spinal fracture as an indirect result of the trucker’s negligence. How does that driver even begin to build a case? Tracing back those lost beer cans to the trucker who failed to secure them could be a herculean, if not impossible, forensic task.
Even in cases in which one can make a pretty good connection between a trucker’s negligence and your accident, plaintiffs must be vigil. Potentially liable insurers and big trucking companies will almost certainly immediately seek to protect themselves, legally speaking, after a major crash. This means, while you are recovering in the hospital and simply trying to catch your bearings, the potential defendants may be ìlawyering upî to protect themselves against any actions you take.
The team here at Danis, Carey & Lowe understands how to neutralize the tricks that trucking companies’ and insurance companies’ use on unsuspecting accident victims. We can help you and your family understand what to do to effectively protect your interests and rights after a serious crash.
Connect with us online or via our toll free hotline today to get answers to your urgent Missouri or Illinois truck accident questions.
