EAST LACKAWANNOCK TOWNSHIP, PA — Daniel Montini was identified by police as the man that was hurt in an accident with a tractor-trailer in East Lackawannock Township, Pennsylvania on Wednesday, March 4th, 2015. News reports said that the accident happened sometime Wednesday, but did not specify the exact time of the crash.
34-year-old Daniel Montini was hurt when he was struck by a box truck while he was changing a tire on Interstate 80. Officials said that the tractor-trailer may have lost control when it left the lane of traffic and struck Montini.
Montini was taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries after the accident.
The driver of the tractor-trailer was identified as Kamal Adow.
The investigation is currently ongoing at this time.
Scene of the Accident
View of the Road
Commentary:
I’ve seen more than one news report say that the tractor-trailer lost control on the road, and because of this, many would assume that the accident isn’t the truck drivers fault, right? I mean, he wouldn’t just lose control of a truck, right? Wrong. In all the years I’ve spent litigating and investigating tractor-trailer accidents quite like this one, I’ve never once found a situation where a tractor-trailer, or any vehicle for that matter, loses control when it is going at too safe a pace. I think what infuriates me the most about this situation however, is that the victim did everything he was supposed to do in the event of a flat tire. He had pulled off the roadway to clear it of other drivers, and was changing a flat tire, when a trained, paid professional truck driver lost control of their truck hit somebody doing the right things.
Now, just because the news makes the fault seem pretty obvious, don’t expect the trucking company behind the driver to simply take responsibility. In 25 years, I’ve never seen something like that happen without some serious legal arm twisting. These trucking companies swing around nearly unlimited legal resources like a sledgehammer, and I’ve seen dozens of very serious and valid accident claims get destroyed because the victims decided to go it alone, and underestimated the fighting power these trucking companies have.