Being involved in a serious accident is one of the most traumaticevents that a person may experience, especially if there were fatalities. One man has been vilified after a deadly train accident that officials say he caused. However, he may have a valid car accident defense based on contributing factors. While this wreck did not happen in New York, drivers here may benefit from one recent change.
The crash occurred in 2015 during a late winter pre-dawn morning. The man who has been charged in the accident purportedly had not slept in a little over a day. Authorities claim that his sleep deprivation was directly to blame for his mistake of turning onto the railroad track. The man traveled several dozen feet down the railway before his truck and utility trailer became lodged on the rails.
Just after the vehicle became stuck, it was hit by a commuter train. More than half of the passengers suffered injuries in the collision and the engineer later succumbed to his wounds. The driver of the truck was reportedly uninjured in the wreck. While officials stated that the man’s ability to drive was impaired by his lack of sleep, the National Traffic Safety Bureau also believes that a navigational application failed to provide adequate information concerning the location of the railroad crossing.
As a result of this fatal wreck, the majority of electronic mapping designers claimed that their directions will include greater detail concerning the location and description of railway crossings, though this change has not yet been implemented. The NTSB had not implicated these types of tools before as playing a role in a serious crash. It is possible that drivers in New York may also have wrecked as a result of faulty directions. The charged driver may now have a valid car accident defense as even if he had gone without rest, if the mapping app had warnings about the crossing, the man might not have made the mistake of turning onto the tracks.
Source: laist.com, “Truck Driver Had Been Awake For 24 Hours Before Deadly 2015 Metrolink Derailment”, Carman Tse, Dec. 20, 2016