BRENTWOOD, NH — Kathleen Tuscano was hurt in an accident with a tractor-trailer that happened in Brentwood, New Hampshire on Friday, March 6th, 2015. Several news outlets said that the accident happened at about 8:12 Friday morning.
Police said that Kathleen Tuscano was hurt when the car she was driving was hit by a tractor-trailer while headed north of Highway 125. Authorities said that Tuscano’s vehicle was hit from the rear by a tractor-trailer while she slowed to turn.
Tuscano was taken by helicopter to a hospital where she was last reported in serious condition.
The driver of the tractor-trailer was identified as William Newman, who was not hurt in the accident.
Scene of the Accident
View of the Road
Commentary:
If the victim in this accident had slowed down to take a turn, as I’ve seen several news outlets report, then the truck driver, and especially the company that hired, trained, and trusted him with a truck is going to be answering some tough questions about what happened. Why did they not see the victim’s car slowing from such a high vantage point? Were they on their phone? Tinkering with the radio? Looking at a GPS? Truck drivers, believe it or not, have several more distractions behind the wheel than your typical driver, and most of these are electronic in nature nowadays. All it would take to figure out if the driver of the truck was surfing on his phone, is taking a look inside each of the distracting devices in teh truck to see if they were in use at the time of the accident.
If the truck driver was simply too busy to keep his eyes on the road thanks to a text message, then the trucking company needs to be put into the hot-seat and made to answer for the actions of their driver. Unfortunately though, even though the fault seems pretty apparent in the news’ version of events, trucking companies will still more than likely fight tooth and nail. I’ve seen trucking companies defend abhorrent drivers that hit-and-run under the influence of drugs, so I’d be willing to bet that they defend a distracted driver. On top of that, these trucking companies have armed themselves with decades of experience in defending themselves, whereas victims have only been through one or two fender-benders their entire lives. Needless to say, going it alone rarely fares well for victims, even if the case looks like a slam-dunk.
