Tampa Personal Injury Law Blog

A dump truck driver traveling on U.S highway 301 collided head on with a passenger car, injuring three children from the greater Tampa area, resulting in injuring one them critically. The other two children were listed in serious condition. The woman who was driving the car that was struck was a 40-year-old who seems to have been the children's mom and has also suffered serious injuries

According to reports, the dump truck driver was heading in the opposite direction to the the victims' car. The driver was apparently not paying careful attention to the road and did not see that a third car had stopped in order to make a turn. To avoid hitting this car, the trucker swerved but wound up hitting the third car anyway. His truck continue to travel in the lane of oncoming traffic and then hit the victim's SUV head-on. Rescuer workers had to take the youngest child, a six-year-old, to the hospital by life flight, but they used ambulances to take the other victims to the same hospital. The driver of the third car suffered minor physical injuries that did not require a trip to the hospital. The accident also closed the highway for hours.

When a Florida driver gets behind the wheel while tired, it can increase the chance of an accident. In some cases, tired drivers are actually dangerous drivers, and they could be a threat to your health and well-being. In order to combat the likelihood of a person driving while exhausted, some organizations are taking measures to increase awareness of this problem.

Several agencies and groups across the state are working to make drivers more aware of how dangerous it can actually be to drive while drowsy. It can cause drivers to make poor decisions behind the wheel or even fall asleep. Driving while too tired to be safe is a type of negligent driving, and accident victims may have grounds to seek compensation through a civil claim.

Unfortunately, the greater Tampa area is on a record-setting pace this year with respect to the frequency of school bus accidents, with many area counties seeing a marked increase in the number of these types of accidents. Hillsborough County, for instance, is on pace to be up 25 percent over 2017.

Other counties in the area posted similar numbers, with one county showing a 27 percent increase and another showing a slightly more modest, but still concerning, 7 percent increase. One locale is on track to more than double the number of school bus accidents since 2017, although this may be because the number of accidents in the area is low to being with.

As previous posts on this blog have discussed, the distracted driving epidemic has hit pedestrians particularly hard. Thousands of pedestrians die, and many more are injured, across the country each year, often thanks to drivers who are simply not paying attention to the road or intersection in front of them.

Tampa, Florida, pedestrians who are involved in accidents, like their counterparts across the state, are especially vulnerable to distracted drivers simply because they have nothing to protect them from the impact of a large, heavy motor vehicle.