Tractor-trailer driver refuses to allow pickup truck to pass; causes serious injury.
This case involved serious injury to the Plaintiff. The Plaintiff’s wife was driving her father’s 2001 GMC Sierra pickup truck. The Plaintiff was a passenger. The couple was traveling eastbound on Interstate 80 in Vacaville, California.
The accident occurred on a portion of the Interstate where four lanes were reduced to three lanes. While lane number four was merging into lane three the Defendant, a professional truck driver who was behind the wheel of a 1999 Volvo 18-wheel tractor-trailer, was just ahead of the Plaintiff’s vehicle.
As the lanes merged, the Defendant moved his truck into lane number three. When the Plaintiff’s vehicle attempted to merge into lane number three behind the Defendant’s Volvo, the Plaintiff’s pickup struck the right front bumper of the tractor-trailer. The contact caused the Plaintiff’s wife to lose control of the pickup, cross all eastbound lanes, and collide into the center divider guardrail. The pickup landed in the first westbound lane and was struck by a third vehicle.
CMS&C located an eyewitness to the accident. That witness indicated that the truck was accelerating when the Plaintiff’s wife attempted to merge into lane number three. CMS&C recovered $600,000 for the Plaintiff, who was hospitalized for seven weeks with a dislocated left hip and two bone fractures and remained in a wheelchair for several months.
