There are many types of car accidents but some of the most deadly involve rollover crashes, or accidents where one car leaves the ground and falls to its side or roof, potentially rolling all the way over one or more times and landing on any surface of the car. Phoenix drivers in these types of collisions often suffer serious or life-threatening injuries and some never make a full recovery.
The reasons these accidents are so dangerous are compound and complex but include the fact that advances in safety design in cars rarely focus on the roof of the vehicle. Instead, recent decades have seen manufactures focusing on adding crumple zones to the front and rear of cars which keep the areas occupied by passengers intact and therefore safer. There have also been advances in the placement and design of airbags with many new vehicles now utilizing side curtain or even divider airbags between the driver’s seat and the passenger’s seat to limit the impact experienced by a passenger in the event of a crash.
Injuries are common in rollover crashes because few of these innovations have focused on the roof area where there is little protection between a passenger and the steel frame of a car. In fact, rollover bars may be one of the better known safety approaches to a car’s roof but they are relatively uncommon and generally are only found in all-terrain vehicles.
This means that when a car strikes the ground or another object with its roof, the roof is likely to cave in and can trap or injure passengers, making it more difficult for them to escape after a collision. Rollover crashes can also present a hazard to those who are not wearing seat belts as the force in the crash may throw a passenger against the roof as the vehicle rolls.
Unfortunately a rollover collision occurred in the San Tan Valley on Monday and it left the driver of the SUV involved dead. Police are not sure what happened at this point but they believe the 68-year-old male driver began to leave the road surface when he tried to veer back onto the road. It appears that the driver may have overcorrected his car’s path of travel and caused the SUV to roll over, leaving the man with injuries that claimed his life.
Rollover collisions often injure multiple people and can be the fault of driver error, poorly designed roads, or even failures in a vehicle or in a tire. After a crash, it may be difficult to determine who was at fault and whether the victims of the accident have a right to compensation for their damages.
At Abels & Annes, P.C., we offer all accident victims a free case consultation to learn about their legal rights and we have a lawyer standing by 24 hours a day to take your call at (855) PHX-LAWYER. If you have been hurt in an accident, call us today and let us help you get a recovery you deserve.
Prior Blog Entry:
Glendale Near Drowning Leaves Boy in Critical Condition, Phoenix Injury Lawyer Blog, published November 13, 2013.
Resources:
Man dies in rollover crash in Pinal County, Fox 10 Phoenix/Associated Press, published November 19, 2013.