Our Missouri truck accident lawyers are reporting yet another fatal semi-truck crash south of St. Louis.  This marks the third fatal tractor-trailer accident in Missouri in the past three months.  The cause?  Another distracted truck driver.  32 year-old Jay Valentine reportedly became distracted as he approached the McNutt Road overpass on northbound I-55 in Herculaneum and encroached upon the passing lane, which was occupied by a small passenger car.  The car was clipped and triggered a six vehicle pileup.  The investigation into Valentine and his conduct remains ongoing, as authorities decide whether evidence exists to prosecute Valentine for causing two deaths and numerous serious personal injuries.

The Herculaneum fatal semi-truck crash ultimately caused the deaths of 52 year-old Charles Martin and 28 year-old Alana McKnight, who were each driving in separate vehicles.  Photographs that our lawyers have reviewed from the accident scene indicate that both cars were crushed against the wall to a point that they were hardly recognizable.  The Missouri truck accident injury lawyers at Schultz & Myers law firm represent innocent victims of commercial motor vehicle accidents.  Our lawyers regularly find, just as appears to be the situation in the Herculaneum semi-truck crash, that a distracted truck driver caused (or contributed to cause) the accident.  So what is being done to reduce these fatal truck accidents?  Well, not enough.

Our lawyers are currently lobbying for increased safety regulation in the commercial trucking industry, including bans on cellphone use for truck drivers.  Time and time again, we are uncovering a level of distraction that is alarming for anyone who believes that sharing our highways with 80,000 pound semi-trucks is safe.  Usually once we download data from a semi-truck's "ECM" (Electronic Control Module), we are able to piece together what happened in the moments leading up to the collision.  The ECM is a truck's "black box", and we find that unless our Missouri tractor-trailer accident lawyers file a protective order in court to preserve this data, that a desperate trucking company will erase or manipulate the data in order to avoid liability.

When investigating a fatal truck accident like the Wednesday crash in Herculaneum, a lawyer must hustle to protect forensic evidence such as the ECM, COMMDATA reports, fuel receipts, log books, trip receipts, bills of laiding, and evidence from the scene itself, including witness statements, arial photographs, impact grooves in the pavement, skid marks, etc.  Failure to preserve this forensic evidence can result in injustice to the injury victims and families that lost a loved one in an 18-wheeler accident.  For more information on how to investigate a Missouri semi-truck accident, contact our highly-trained lawyers toll-free at (866) 840-3636.