Multi-Car Accidents Spell Danger, Yet Single-Vehicle Crashes Can Also Cause Serious Bodily Injury

Not matter where in Maryland one drives, whether it’s in Montgomery, Anne Arundel, or Prince George’s County, even in Washington, D.C., motorists are bound to come across some kind of a traffic-related accident on one of our roadways. Causing injuries as varied as simple cuts and bruises, to fractures, internal injuries and severe head trauma, these mostly preventable collisions kill and maim thousands every year, both here in Maryland as well as across the nation.

Working in the Baltimore area as personal injury lawyers, I and my colleagues are taken aback at the number of car, truck and motorcycle accidents that occur every month, sending men, women and children who have been injured to the hospital with sometimes serious and life-threatening bodily injuries. As Maryland automobile and commercial truck accident attorneys, we understand all too well how a simple and seemingly insignificant act on one driver’s part can change the course of another individual’s life in an instant.

Taking a constant human toll, these urban and rural traffic crashes can happen in various areas through the state, as well as on highways and expressways, surface streets and country roads. Making proper choices on our densely packed roads can be the difference between someone making it home safely and triggering a tragic car, truck or pedestrian accident. As drivers, we all have a responsibility to ourselves, our families and society as a whole to conduct our lives in a manner that does not jeopardize another person’s health or well-being. For those who forget this simple rule, or chose behavior that essentially ignores one’s civic responsibilities, the law and our court system has ways of helping victims seek compensation for damages and injuries received as a result.

While most motorists likely do not over-think the potential of a poor decision while traveling at 50mph along a busy road, the potential for a car or commercial trucking wreck is always there. Any potential for a serious car crash or fatal traffic accident is reason enough to consider the consequences of one’s actions; however, the speed at which we as a society travel these thoroughfares can only severe to exacerbate any mistakes some drivers make in traffic, causing sometimes deadly and irreversible consequences.

Nobody should be required to suffer as a result of another driver’s poor choices or thoughtless actions. We mention this due to a news article that covered a single-vehicle wreck along a stretch of Clayton Rd. in the Joppa, MD, area a while back. According to news reports, the crash in question took place on a Sunday afternoon as a resident from Bel Air, MD, was operating an ’08 Honda near the intersection of Kates Lane in Harford County, Maryland.

Based on police reports, EMS and other first responders arrived at the scene of the accident to find a 50-year-old driver trapped inside his overturned car. Police believe that the car rolled several times before coming to rest. Fortunately for the victim, firefighters were able to free the man using the so-called “jaws of life” to cut and pry open the mangled vehicle’s steel structure. After removing the car’s doors and roof, rescue personnel were able to remove the man, who was immediately flown to Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore by the Maryland State police Medevac helicopter.

There was no mention of whether the single-car crash and subsequent roll-over episode was initiated by a mechanical failure of one of the vehicle’s critical safety-related systems or components — such as a broken steering linkage or a blown tire.

Man seriously injured in Joppa car accident, BaltimoreSun.com, August 14, 2012

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