As indicated in a prior post, more than 5,000 people a year die in accidents involving tractor-trailers. That means that many individuals and families will be devastated each year by the injuries and deaths and they will need a helping hand. A program of the Truck Safety Coalition offers just that.
The First Response Program is a network of volunteers in communities across the country that offer support and assistance to the victims and families of victims of accidents involving tractor-trailers. The Mission Statement of the program is:
We will seek to locate and help new victims of truck crashes by providing information, encouragement, hope or simply a willing and understanding ear. We will seek to provide them with assistance, comfort and information that we wish someone had provided for us in such a dark time, and to let them know that, if they choose, there are ways to try to make some degree of sense of such a senseless situation. Helping to comfort truck crash victims and helping to satisfy their needs is the foundation for the First Response Program.
And their goal is:
Our goal is to contact and support every truck crash victim in the United States. Unfortunately, this is an aggressive goal due to the tragic number of truck crashes every year. By setting up the network, we hope to support, state by state, the new victims of truck crashes. It is important for us to let them know they are not alone in their time of grief.
While this goal may be aggressive, it is attainable if word of their work gets out. Contact information for the program can be found by calling (703) 294-6404, or by sending an e-mail inquiry to crash@trucksafety.org. With luck, most of us will never need the support and assistance of these volunteers but it is comforting to know they are there for us if we need them.
Bret Hanna of Wrona DuBois in Utah, focuses exclusively on litigating plaintiffs’ medical malpractice and catastrophic personal injury cases. He has represented clients in state and federal courts, in mediations, and in administrative proceedings in Michigan and Utah since 1991.
2 Comments
Facebook User
This is a noble cause. As a truck driver with years of experience I see allot on the road.
Just remember the facts though.
In over 80% of the fatal accidents involving trucks, the truck driver is not at fault.
Also you may want to check your numbers.
Those are old. The number of fatality's in accidents with commercial trucks has been going down ever year recently. Those numbers are a little high.
But it does make the point.
There are way too many people dieing in accidents on the road. In accidents that involve trucks and those that do not.
A good idea is to try and push for laws that will get drivers off the road that show signs of being habitual offenders of traffic laws, both in cars and in trucks.
This may be a better area to really push in. Not as much money to be made, but a worthy cause.
Bret Hanna
Jonathon:
If you can point me to updated numbers, I'd be happy to take a look at them. And I agree with you that looking for ways to keep habitual offender drivers of all types off the road is a great goal. I'll take a look to see what might make sense in this regard.
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