Chardon, OH — Police said that three firefighters with the Munson Township Fire Department were injured on Wednesday afternoon (March 4, 2015) after an accident with another vehicle. Police said that while responding to a car, a Munson firetruck was hit head-on by a large SUV on Wilson Mills Road.
The accident happened at about 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, they said, near the intersection with Fowlers Mill Road. A Munson Township firetruck was driving west along Wilson Mills that afternoon and was using its lights and sirens, headed toward an emergency call.
In the opposite lane of traffic, a Dodge minivan started to slow down and move to the side of the road so that the firetruck could pass by. A large SUV (GMC Acadia) behind the minivan didn’t see it in time and crashed into the back of it, which caused the SUV to swerve into the oncoming lanes of traffic.
The GMC SUV and the firetruck collided head-on, which left three firefighters with injuries. Police said that the GMC Acadia’s was more seriously injured and had to be taken to a hospital as well as the others.
Map of the Accident
View from the Road
Commentary:
The law, of course, differs from state to state, but what I’m about to describe is generally pretty standard practice. I’m talking about an area of insurance law called UIM policies (under-insured motorist policies), which deal with accidents and drivers who don’t have enough insurance. The simple idea is that if your insurance policy has a UIM provision, and you get into an accident with a driver with insufficient insurance, your UIM policy acts as insurance to bridge the gap, so to speak.
Firetrucks, though technically owned by the county or state, can also have liability policies with UIM provisions. It’s not guaranteed, of course, but commercial trucks of that size usually have some kind of liability coverage, and since it’s a commercial truck, the limits are usually much higher than your standard auto policy limits. Again, it can vary, but a typical commercial minimum coverage liability insurance policy can run between $750,000 and $1 million. If an accident occurs and the other driver doesn’t have enough coverage to fix the damage, the injured parties may be able to use their own UIM policy to make up the difference. This is a little-known area of the law in Texas, at least, but we’ve had occasion to use this in many of our cases in the past.
— Grossman Law Offices
