Man Killed in Vehicle Crash Involving Tire Blowout
An Oklahoma man was killed after his pickup truck suffered a blowout. The driver lost control of the vehicle which hit a ditch and rolled over several times before coming to a stop. The driver was taken to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead at the scene. His condition at the time of the accident is still under investigation. However, the man was not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the accident which caused him to be ejected from the vehicle.
Will the Lack of a Seatbelt be a Barrier to a Lawsuit
Well, it doesn’t help. Let’s first get that much out of the way. It will hurt a lawsuit brought by the family if the family decides to file a lawsuit against the tire company, a local municipality, or anyone else.
The problem is that the man may have survived the crash if he was not ejected from a rolling vehicle. However, that does not erase negligence committed by other parties. It only diminishes their contribution of negligence to the situation—and in fact, it may reduce it by a lot depending on the circumstances of the case and how the driver died.
However, you still have the tire. Tires generally don’t blowout by themselves, so an investigation into the cause of the tire blowout will need to be conducted. Typically, this is something that a personal injury attorney does.
The tire can reveal much about how the blowout occurred. In some cases, there will be evidence of road debris being responsible for the accident. In cases where there is no obvious cause, tire failure generally happens for one of two reasons. Either the tire suffered a tread separation (the outer surface of the tire separates from the tire casing) or a sidewall failure can also lead to a fatal blowout.
The problem for personal injury attorneys who litigate tire failure accidents is that it’s sometimes difficult to determine the ultimate cause of the tire failure. Tire failure can happen when a driver drives on an inflated tire for an extended period of time. The drooping causes the treads to bow at the bottom and this results in damage to the adhesion that allows the treads and casing to operate together. Eventually, the treads separate or the sidewall fails and this results in a blowout.
In other cases, a manufacturing defect produces the same exact problem although it has the benefit of not being a vehicle-maintenance failure. So the company that produced the tire would be liable in that instance as opposed to the driver who ostensibly kept their tires properly inflated.
Talk to a Florida Tire Blowout Attorney
If you’ve suffered an injury due to a tire blowout accident, call the Coral Gables tire defect attorneys at Halpern, Santos & Pinkert today and we will investigate the cause of the crash and determine whether or not you have a successful case. Call to schedule your free case evaluation today.
Resource:
tulsaworld.com/news/adair-county-man-killed-in-highway-crash-after-tire-blowout/article_769ed253-4e7e-5bf3-9c92-71ca92ebe8aa.html
