Taxi Passenger Killed In Collision With Parked Truck
A recent Fort Worth car crash makes for an intriguing personal injury case as the question of liability comes under investigation… On Sunday night, Richard Chu died when the taxi cab he was riding in smashed into an 18-wheeler which was parked on the service road shoulder along I-35W, just south of Meacham Boulevard. Chu had been visiting the Dallas area from Brick, New Jersey. The cabdriver was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and the cabdriver was not injured. The accident is currently under investigation but is particularly interesting to me as an attorney specializing in auto collisions for a number of reasons.
First of all, the truck was parked outside the Coors distribution center, waiting for it to open at the time of the wreck. Although that might not seem like the safest place to park, a city ordinance does actually allow oversized commercial vehicles to park on public streets - so long as they are not parked there for more than 2 hours. Police are currently trying to determine how long the truck was actually parked there, as if he exceeded the 2 hour limit then the truck driver could be found at fault. This time limit seems arbitrary to me. How is it safe for a big rig to be parked on a service road for up to 2 hours? I would argue that rather than haggling over minutes, a better rule would be that parked trucks must use cones and hazard lights to alert other motorists to their presence – if they should even be allowed to block the roadway at all.
The second interesting issue in this accident is that the driver of the taxi claims not to remember the events immediately leading up to the impact, although the police report that skid marks were found on the road which suggest that the cabdriver did indeed notice the truck was parked there before he ran into it. This concerns me. People take cabs in order to get where they’re going safely. I’ve advised friends and family members on many occasions to take a cab home if they’ve been drinking, and when someone does so they are effectively putting their life in someone else’s hands. So why doesn’t the cab driver remember the incident and the decisions he made over those crucial seconds? Could it be that he himself wasn’t in a fit state to be driving that night or wasn’t taking due care to get his passenger to his destination safely?
I have handled a lot of injury and wrongful death cases over the years and there is always the question of who is truly to blame for the tragedy occurring. My team and I thoroughly investigate the circumstances surrounding the accident and the moments leading up to it in order to determine liability. I will be very interested to learn of Ft. Worth PD’s conclusion in this case as it seems to be that both the truck and cab driver are partially responsible for Mr. Chu’s death.
