Our Houston wrongful death lawyers were appalled to hear of the tragic death of two Texas women killed by a 16-year-old driving a big rig. The teenager was behind the wheel of a Volvo truck hauling horses to Wyoming after a rodeo in Oklahoma.
The Volvo truck left the road of I-70 east of Denver, CO around 6:30 in the morning and struck and killed the two women as they changed a tire. The women, Amanda Oyo-Iyamu of Carrollton and Shun Jones of Balch Springs, probably never even knew what hit them.
The teenager had been behind the wheel of the Volvo truck with his father, 37-year-old Michel Martin, in the truck cab with him. Reportedly, just moments after the fatal tractor-trailer wreck, Martin’s friends, who had been in a vehicle traveling behind the truck, picked up the teen and left the scene. The father tried to take the heat for the fatal impact. (Source: Jonathan Betz, WFAA, 7/16/2012)
Our Houston wrongful death lawyers find it understandable, maybe even laudable, that the father tried to take the blame for his son for the fatal impact. But there’s no getting around that the father’s mistake in letting the child drive the heavy truck on the highway in the first place contributed to the two tragic deaths.
Here in Texas, it’s not that unusual to have teens drive large trucks and farm vehicles on rural roads. But our Houston wrongful death lawyers point out that letting them take the wheel on the interstates at highway speeds is another matter. Maybe the father was fatigued and thought he’d let his son take the wheel for a while so that they didn’t have to pull off the road to rest.
Even if the teen was accustomed to taking farm trucks and vehicles out on the roads from time to time, there’s no getting around the fact that it takes time and experience to learn to drive safely, account for all highway hazards around a vehicle, and react safely to the various situations you might encounter while behind the wheel.
Driving a complex and massive heavy truck takes even more time and care than driving a lighter, smaller passenger vehicle. Loaded livestock trucks react more slowly to commands to turn and stop. The trucks contain more complex gearboxes and controls than passenger vehicles. And their huge weight adds to the momentum that can impel them forward into deadly impacts.
We can’t know for certain if the father would have avoided leaving I-70 in that early morning hour or if he would have reacted more effectively if he noticed the truck veering from the roadway. But his experience behind the wheel could have made a crucial difference to the two women changing the tire.
Now Martin faces the charge of filing a false police report and his son faces two felony charges of leaving the scene of the fatal wreck as well as two misdemeanor charges for negligent driving causing death. And a Texas family suffers the loss of two beloved relatives. It was negligent for the father to allow his teenage son, who could not have had sufficient experience driving, to take the wheel of that livestock truck that morning.
Driver negligence can happen anywhere at any time. Learn what to do if you and your family suffer grievous losses because of another person’s negligence. Download our Houston wrongful death lawyers’ free, informative book on your essential steps to a full financial recovery after a serious wreck. It’s available to our readers with a click on this web page.