As Maryland truck accident attorneys, over the years my colleagues and I have represented numerous trucking crash victims and their families. Trucking collisions don’t only injure pedestrians and drivers of other cars and SUVs, these kinds of tractor-trailer and delivery truck accidents also cause injury to the truck drivers operating them. A recent article illustrates this one type of truck crash that resulted in the untimely death of a teenage driver and the severe injury of the other passenger of that vehicle.
While the preliminary police report issued at the time of the news article indicated that the single-vehicle accident was a result of driver error combined with less than optimal road conditions, there could also be a chance of defective equipment, such as worn tires or other mechanical failure.
According to news reports, a 19-year-old driver died several days following a single-truck crash on Route 100 in Anne Arundel County. Police reports showed that Dakota Kelly Alder of Pasadena, MD, died from injuries sustained during a crash four days earlier near the Route 100 and Interstate 97 interchange.
The accident report stated that the driver lost control of the vehicle around 2:30 in the afternoon p.m. and lost control of the truck. The initial police investigation stated that the truck was likely traveling at a higher rate of speed than the wet road conditions would have allowed. The young driver apparently lost control of the vehicle which then struck the guard rail and flipped over.
Rescue crews arriving on the scene administered first aid to both the driver and passenger then transported them to local hospitals. According to police, Alder was taken to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center where he was treated but died several days later. The only passenger, 19-year-old Jordan Joshua Swick, also of Pasadena, was taken in critical condition to the Baltimore Washington Medical Center.
19-year-old driver dies days after Arundel crash, BaltimoreSun.com, November 16, 2009