Tamara Lopez, 1 Injured in Truck Accident in Bedford, TX
Bedford, TX -- December 21, 2022, Tamara Lopez and another driver were injured after a commercial vehicle accident.
Preliminary details which authorities made available indicate that the crash happened just before 6:00 p.m. along Highway 121 in the area of Cheek Sparger Road.
The details said that 52-year-old Tamara Lopez was in a Chevy Equinox traveling southbound along the highway. While doing so, an approaching Mack truck apparently failed to control speed and crashed into Lopez's vehicle. The truck then went on to hit a Lexus driven by a 44-year-old Euless woman.
As a result of the crash, Lopez was said to have incapacitating injuries. The Lexus driver's injuries were described as non-incapacitating. At this time, no further details can be confirmed, though folks may not think there's much more to discuss anyway. That's rarely true with commercial vehicle accidents. Let me explain why that is.
To put it simply, a truck wreck is seldom as straight-forward as saying a driver "failed to control speed," getting them in front of a judge, and reaching a just conclusion. There are usually unique factors that either stand in the way of those just conclusions or go unnoticed, allowing some people to escape consequences.
Are Reckless Drivers Solely to Blame, or Are There Accomplices?
I'll give a perfect example. Not long ago, I handled a situation involving a truck driver texting and driving. Open-and-shut, right? Less experienced attorneys might say so, but I knew from experience how important it was to get the whole story. As a result, investigations found that the truck driver had been texting his supervisor. This was a major find, but why?
Essentially, that supervisor would constantly harass their employees with calls and texts, micromanaging their every move. If they didn't respond immediately, their unreasonable boss would get angry, basically threatening them with their jobs. As such, it was just a matter of time before a driver trying to appease their idiot boss made a mistake and got themselves hurt. That supervisor and that company were either too stupid to see the dangers or too flippant to care. It's hard to say which would be worse.
In that example, what could have been just one driver's mistake ended up being a whole company in need of a wake-up call. Failing to address that behavior could allow them not only to avoid consequences but to continue their behavior and put more lives at risk. Was their behavior an excuse for the driver that was texting? Not at all--he still messed up. But the law is nuanced enough to recognize there can be many factors and many people contributing to a serious crash.
To be clear, I can't say what or who did or didn't contribute to this crash without seeing clear evidence. My point is simply that these early reports rarely tell the whole story, and there are potentially unusual circumstances that are important to consider. Are steps being taken here to at least rule out those possibilities?
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