Austin Personal Injury and Car Accident Law Blog

While most drivers understand the importance of maintaining focus on the task at hand while they are behind the wheel, they are also aware of the many potential distractions drivers may encounter. In some cases, a driver whose attention veers from the road for even a second or two can cause a fatal accident, changing the lives of several people at once. This may have been what happened recently when two members of a Texas family were killed and another one was seriously injured on their way home from a family celebration.

The crash happened on a Sunday evening when a woman and man along with their son and daughter were returning to their home in Nacogdoches after they had been celebrating the daughter's recent college acceptance. They were stopped in traffic when a driver rear-ended their vehicle. Reportedly, the driver was traveling at a high speed and did not see the slowed traffic coming up ahead.

Texas drivers who have traveled on highways or any roadway involving high speed likely understand the importance of taking particular safety measures in the event they must pull over to the side and exit the vehicle for any reason. However, sometimes no amount of attention to safety can prevent a tragedy from happening. Vehicles can veer off the road for many reasons, and occasionally, a person in the path of such a vehicle becomes the victim of a fatal accident. Such was the case when a woman was killed when she stepped outside her vehicle on a roadway in Lubbock.

The collision happened early on a recent Tuesday evening. A 56-year-old woman driving a vehicle pulling a trailer stopped in the outside lane and got out to inspect the trailer connection. A family member who had been following her in a pickup truck pulled over and stopped behind her. A city utility truck traveling in the same lane struck the pickup truck and pushed it into the trailer. The utility truck also struck the woman inspecting the trailer, and sadly, she died at the scene.

Probably all Texas drivers can recount many times in which they've had to pass a vehicle in front of them, whether the other vehicle was moving too slowly for the passing driver or for other reasons. Sometimes, such a strategy requires a driver to pull back into the same lane, this time in front of the passed vehicle. Although most drivers make this move in a safe manner, some do not, and an unsafe move can result in a fatal accident.

In one such example, the 24-year-old driver of an 18-wheeler died when his truck fell off a Houston bridge after a car cut him off. The crash happened on a recent Wednesday morning when, according to police, the car driver made an unsafe lane change. The truck driver collided with the rear end of the car, then hit the bridge's concrete barrier causing the truck to fall off the bridge. It landed upside down on a chemical manufacturing plant below the bridge.

Most Texas drivers, no matter how attentive they are while behind the wheel, can remember a time when they failed to see an obstacle on or at the side of the roadway. In most cases, a driver is able to avert disaster by making necessary adjustments before making contact with the object. Unfortunately, in some cases, particularly if the driver is distracted or under the influence of drugs or alcohol, he or she will not see an obstacle in time, and sometimes, tragedy results. Such was the case in a recent car accident on a Texas roadway.

The crash happened very early on a Wednesday morning. Allegedly, a 26-year-old man in a pickup truck collided with a 30-year-old man as he was getting out of his own pickup truck that was stopped near an exit ramp. The second pickup had been involved in an earlier accident when the driver had struck safety barriers as he exited onto the ramp, causing his vehicle to flip over.