New Bern, NC — Earlier this week, a truck driver was badly injured after being involved in an accident with a smaller car along Highway 70. The accident happened on Thursday, March 26, 2015 and the truck driver who was injured has since been identified as Kirby Best.
Best was injured when his 18-wheeler truck was hit by a smaller Ford Crown Victoria that was trying to pass him on Highway 70. Police said that he was headed along Highway 70 on Thursday morning (at about 9:00 a.m.) when a driver in a Ford Crown Victoria swerved around him to pass.
It’s not clear what happened yet, but it appears that Best either over-corrected or flat-out lost control when his rig was hit by the Crown Victoria. This ultimately caused his 18-wheeler to swerved off the road and crash.
Best was taken to a hospital to be treated for critical injuries and was in a coma as of Friday. It’s not clear whether the other driver will be charged or not.
Update: The Crown Victoria’s driver was identified as Larry Lawson.
Update: Larry Lawson has since been charged with felony death by vehicle and was apparently under the influence of alcohol when this accident happened.
Map of New Bern
Commentary:
I’ve talked about this area of the law before (insurance law), but I’ll mention UIM policies here again because there are lots of attorneys who don’t even know about this. Under-Insured Motorist (UIM) policies are usually a standard part of commercial insurance policies, and their purpose is to bridge the gap when you get into an accident with someone who doesn’t carry enough insurance to cover the damage. For example, in this accident, a smaller car (which probably has a “liability-only” policy) has allegedly caused an accident that did a a lot of damage and caused a lot of injury.
Now, this isn’t just a free meal ticket for more relief. When your insurance carrier starts having to pay money out for an accident that wasn’t your fault, they automatically “switch teams” and start looking at things from the at-fault driver’s POV. Essentially, they won’t just pay out the policy without looking for loopholes or ways to partially deny the claim. For commercial policies, especially, this can be a big issue since the amount of funds involved is so much greater than your typical auto policy.
Like I said, this area of the law can get complex, and there are plenty of other lawyers in my industry who have no experience with cases like this. I don’t know whether it really applies in this situation, but again, this appears to be an accident where major damage was caused by a little car.
— Grossman Law Offices
