HAYWOOD, TN — One truck driver was killed in a tractor-trailer pileup accident that happened in Haywood County, Tennessee on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2014, according to a news report from The Jackson Sun.
Investigators with details of the crash investigation believe that Robert Hanna was killed when the tractor trailer he was driving collided with two tractor-trailers that had just been involved in a previous collision while driving on Interstate 40.
Scene of the Accident:
Robert Hanna was killed in the crash after his truck erupted into flames. No other injuries were detailed in the news summary.
The accident is being investigated by the Tennessee Highway Patrol.
Commentary:
There are two ways of looking at this accident, and I’d like to shine the light on the first two trucks that got in the accident. If these two trucks failed to clear the road after an accident, they may bear the lions share of the liability in this accident if the news report turns out to be accurate. If the vehicles were mobile, there is no reason the trucks should not have been moved to the shoulder after the accident.
Additionally, whenever I see that a vehicle has burst into flames after an accident, eyebrows should raise. Many people are stunned when they learn that tractor-trailers are not engineered with nearly the same kind of safety specifications that your average, run-of-the-mill car is outfitted with. Most of the commercial vehicles you see on the road are not even equipped with air bags. This is only compounded by the fact that the gas tanks on tractor-trailers are mounted externally on the vehicle. This is why you see so many tractor-trailers erupt into flames after accidents, because these gas tanks are essentially unshielded and exposed on the open road, a problem that could easily be fixed with a metal cage around the gas tank, or simply moving it inboard closer to the center of the vehicle
–Grossman Law Offices