Ontario Car Accidents Prove Freeways and Streets Risky
A few devastating car accidents have taken place in Ontario, California over the last few years. Two of these fatal car accidents occurred in almost exactly the same stretch of the 10 Freeway near Vineyard Avenue, concerning residents with the safety of their roads. Read more information here Wrongful Death Attorney Philadelphia.
The first accident involved a casino tour bus that struck the driver’s side of a fire engine. A 40-year-old firefighter was ejected from the engine and sustained major chest and head injuries while the front passenger in the tour bus, age 75, died immediately. The engine was forced to veer all the way across the freeway, but luckily no other vehicles were involved.
Responding firefighters had to cut away the crushed steel of the tour bus to release the 55 passengers. Twenty-six of the passengers were taken to the hospital with varying injuries from minor to severe, and 150 hospital personnel were called in to help with injuries.
Ontario personal injury lawyers were concerned that the tour bus, on its way to Fantasy Springs Casino in Indio, CA, was not well-driven, because fire personnel are trained to the highest of safety standards and are not likely to cause an accident, but the attorney representing the tour company said, “[they’ve] never had a serious accident.”
Two years later another tragic accident took place in the same area on the 10 Freeway. This accident involved an F-150 truck carrying seven passengers, when the driver inexplicably lost control of the vehicle. The truck impacted a tree before slamming into the freeway sound wall. Only two of the passengers, ages 3 and 10, survived the accident, but suffered major injuries. The vehicle only seats six, the California Highway Patrol noted, so one person must not have been wearing a seatbelt.
Only an empty child’s seat, a lone sneaker, and a piece of worn tire was left on the scene. After some investigation was done, the tire was found to be manufactured by Continental Tire, a company which recalled some sizes of its ContriTrac AW tired in 2002. The faulty tires have “lower than specified rubber gauge between the belt edges” and can give out, causing the driver to lose control of the vehicle.
One officer of the California Highway Patrol said, “This is the worst accident I’ve experienced in terms of the number of fatalities and children,” and Ontario car accident attorneys are concerned that the malfunctioning tire is a product liability claim that many more drivers need to be aware of.
