Three of four people in a pickup truck lost their lives on I-85 in Dinwiddie County, Virginia (VA), when their vehice slammed into the back of a logging truck on November 11, 2011. The fatal rear-end collision occurred in a work zone near the interstate overpass for Dabney Mill Road/VA Route 613. A charter bus carrying North Carolina A&T engineering students to an academic conference was also involved in the wreck, which left the log hauler and bus driver injured.
The person in the pickup who survived the chain-reaction accident had serious, but not life-threatening injuries, according to the local Progress-Index newspaper.
As tragic as the incident was and will continue to be for those who lost loved ones, what struck me as a Virginia accident injury and wrongful death attorney was that the three-vehicle pileup illustrated so many of the things that can wrong to cause a deadly interstate crash. First, the pickup hit the logging truck from behind. An analysis of 2010 traffic accidents in Virginia revealed that a large majority of wrecks occurred because an at-fault driver had been following another vehicle too closely.
Second, the Dinwiddie County fatalities occurred in a highway work zone. While no people on the road crew got hurt, people did get killed and injured because of the changes in traffic patterns and traffic flow necessitated by roadwork. Anyone approaching or moving through a work zone must slow down, increase following distance and watch constantly for brake lights ahead.
Third, the fatal rear-end collision shows how large commercial vehicles, by their very size, present a constant risk to drivers and passengers in smaller vehicles. While it is too soon to know whether the log truck operator or the pickup driver bears responsibility for the initial wreck, it is more likely that the people in the pickup would have survived an accident with something other than a logging truck.
EJL