Truck wheel comes off, bounces on top of car, kills woman
Austin, TX, 11/17/05.
A woman was killed Wednesday when a wheel and tire came off an 18-wheeler trailer, bounced over the median barrier on I-35, and landed on top of a Honda. The driver of the Honda was killed instantly.
The truck involved is licensed to McRyan Hauling Inc. in Roanoke, TX, and was being driven by Alan Louis McKinney, 41, of Dallas. It is unclear whether the trailer also belonged to McRyan Hauling Inc. McRyan Hauling employs more than 100 drivers and transports sand, gravel and building and construction materials, according to a report from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Over the past 24 months, company vehicles have been involved in six crashes that resulted in injuries, but no fatalities, the federal report shows.
Investigation of such an incident should include close examination of maintenance and inspection issues. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations include fairly stringent rules about equipment issues, including wheels and tires, and require detailed pre-trip inspections by drivers. It sounds like maybe somebody changed the tires and failed to tighten the lug nuts, but the chance of the trucking company and its insurer being forthrightly honest about it is ... ahem, uncertain.
See article.
The Shigley Law Firm represents plaintiffs in wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases statewide in Georgia, and in other states subject to the multijurisdictional practice and pro hac vice rules in each state. Ken Shigley was designated as a "SuperLawyer" in Atlanta Magazine and one of the "Legal Elite" in Georgia Trend Magazine. He is a Certified Civil Trial Advocate of the National Board of Trial Advocacy, Chair of the Southeastern Motor Carrier Liability Institute and former chair of the Georgia Insurance Law Institute. He particularly focuses on cases arising from truck wrecks and accidents (tractor trailers truck wrecks, semi truck wrecks,18 wheeler truck wrecks, big rig truck wrecks, log truck wrecks, dump truck wrecks).
At least one court has determined that loose lug nuts is not evidence of negligence per se because the term "loose" is vague & imprecise insofar as the regulations do not specify any particular amount of torque.
Omega Contracting, Inc. v. Torres, 2005 WL 2403326 (Tex. App. Sept. 29, 2005) (Owner and driver of tractor-trailer, whose tires separated from tractor and precipitated wreck involving four tractor-trailer rigs, were not negligent per se in regard to injuries sustained by driver of one of the other tractor-trailers for failing to comply with Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulation (FMCSR) prohibiting operation of vehicles that had loose nuts or bolts, as word "loose" was vague and not susceptible of precise meaning, and did not put owners and operators of commercial vehicles on notice of what conduct was prohibited or required). 49 U.S.C.A. § 31131; 49 C.F.R. § 393.205.
At the other end of the spectrum, a Tennessee court reversed a trial judge's finding that such an accident was unavoidable due to prior repair work by a third party who allegedly used too much pressure on the air wrench when installing the nuts on the lugs, thus overtightening them.
Sydes v. WDW Trucking Co., 1988 WL 77618 (Tenn. App., July 29,1988) (Defendant's evidence does not establish the age or condition of the trailer and its wheels, nor evidence of any systematic inspection for defects or a history of preventive maintenance to avoid such occurrences, which defendant operator conceded was a rather common occurrence in the industry; driver didn't know the extent of the mileage the wheels had experienced and he relied on "visible inspections" for preventive maintenance).
