Illinois Truck Accident Lawyer Blog

ABC 7 News examined the risks that car and truck drivers take every day in the Chicago area while attempting to drive in front of local Metra trains.

The problem seems to be growing this year. Train operators note that total train accident deaths in just the first five months of 2010 are almost the total for the entire year in 2009. With a 1,000-ton train traveling down the track at 70 miles per hour, there is almost no such thing as a “minor” train accident. Each incident is extremely costly.

Yet, car divers, truck drivers, and pedestrians still often refuse to wait for a train to pass at a crossing—willing to take the risk while trying to dart in front of an oncoming train. The investigation noted that the risk is higher during rush hours and in construction zones. Drivers seem ever more impatient at those times and locations, willing to risk more. At one location on the test ride, investigators noticed the tail end of a semi stopped on the tracks while a train moved toward it. The semi was able to get out of the way with only seconds to spare. Train engineers report that those close calls occur every single day.

Our Chicago truck accident attorneys at Levin & Perconti understand the extreme risk any driver, especially truckers, take when attempting to beat a speeding train. The perception of the driver when on the road and staring down a track is often dangerously skewed. It is impossible to know exactly how fast a train is going, how long it will take to arrive at the crossing, and how long it will take the vehicle to drive across the danger area. This is even truer for semi-trucks, which have long beds to get across the track zone. Under no circumstances is the small time savings worth the risk of damage and death that comes with a train accident.

An Illinois man was killed when his postal truck was struck by a train in Illinois on July 27th. At the time of the trucking accident, the victim who was a mail carrier, was driving his work truck. The section of train tracks where the trucking crash occurred was a spot that did not have crossing gates or flashing lights, and which was only marked by yield signs. According to The Chicago Tribune, little more is known about this accident, including why the man chose to try to cross the tracks at the time that he did. Police say that the truck driver was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident, after his truck was carried 300 yards along the tracks before the train was finally able to come to a complete stop. To read more about this Illinois truck accident, please click on this link.

While it is not very safe for train crossings to be equipped with only a yield sign, as long as this is the case at certain stops, drivers need to be completely alert and aware of approaching trains if they are driving in an area like this. If you come to a train crossing and there is no other warning measures, other than a yield sign, please both listen for an approaching train as well as look as far as you can see to see if one is approaching in the distance. If you have any thought that a train could be approaching, please wait in order to err on the side of safety.

Videotape has been released showing the trucking accident in which an Amtrak train crashed into a fire truck. This accident occurred while the train was traveling to Chicago on March 1st and a fire truck was stopped on the train tracks. According to NBC’s website, the fire truck and a police car were in the area because they were responding to another trucking accident that had occurred in the area. The videotape shows that that a warning siren went off before the crash occurred and that the police car was moved just in time to avoid the accident. While luckily no one suffered any serious personal injuries as a result of this accident, an investigation is underway as to why the firefighters parked the truck on the train tracks instead of somewhere else in the close area.

It is important for safety and emergency vehicles to be careful and aware when dealing with other drivers in the same way that any passenger vehicle driver would. Emergency vehicles should make sure they are stopped in a spot that is not directly in the way of other vehicles that will not be able to avoid an accident. Emergency vehicles can obstruct traffic when they need to park somewhere to get to an emergency but should always try to stop in the safest spot that they can, given the situation. In this case, little information is known as to why the firefighters chose to stop on the tracks directly rather than somewhere else nearby, but it is likely that less destruction would have occurred had they parked the fire truck off the tracks. To read more about this trucking crash and the ongoing investigation, please click on the link.

A trucking accident in Christian County that occurred on November 11th resulted in no injuries. According to My State Line, a truck driver claims to have not seen a train coming as we waited on the track for traffic to clear the road ahead, and it was too late to get off the track once he realized and the train drove through the trailer of the truck. Luckily, while there was a mess following the trucking accident no one was injured as a result of the accident. There were apparently no lights or arms at the intersection to warn of possible oncoming trains. For more information on this Taylorville trucking accident, click on this link.

A truck accident involving a log truck and a freight train occurred in the morning of June 18th. Luckily, no injuries have been reported at this point, but the highway was blocked for several hours following this truck accident. The reason for the long shutdown following the truck/train accident was because of the cleanup of the debris and spillage from the tankers. Nothing that spilled is reported to be toxic unless it catches on fire. For more information on this truck accident, click here.

A 70-year-old man was killed in a Chicago truck accident in the early morning hours of May 8. According the Chicago Breaking News, two cars and one semi-truck were involved. A driver in a Ford Taurus lost control of his car and hit a retaining wall near 79th Street on Chicago’s South Side. The truck driver was able to slow down to avoid a collision but a minivan failed to come to a stop and slammed into the back of the semi, killing the van driver. The driver of the Taurus and the semi-truck did not suffer any personal injuries. The report did not reveal what caused the driver of the Taurus to initially lose control of his car. To read more about this Chicago truck accident.

An Amtrak train travelling from St. Louis to Chicago struck and killed a woman in her pickup truck in Hartford, Illinois recently. The 31-year-old train crash victim was pregnant with her second child, said the Coroner’s Office of Madison County, Illinois. Witnesses who saw the truck accident said that the train did not sound its horn and was not able to reach a complete stop until it was about one mile past the intersection. Witnesses were concerned that the train crossing had no signal lights or crossing signs and many had deemed it a hazard for years. Read more about this truck-train collision.

A man sustained serious injuries to his arm, chest, head and pelvis after being pinned beneath a large truck that was struck by a train. The man was trying to help move a tractor-trailer truck that was stuck on train tracks, but unfortunately the train struck the truck before the man could move.

Emergency workers freed the man, who was pinned under the tractor-trailer, after the train drug the truck for 30 feet. The man was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. Read about this truck accident by following the link.

In the last week, Chicago trains have been involved in car crashes and other automobile accidents, pedestrian collisions, and derailments. This morning, a freight train with 72 cars headed from Canada to Chicago experienced a derailment in Buffalo Grove, Illinois. No injuries were caused by the derailment, but two cars were holding sulfur, a toxic, hazardous material. According to a spokesperson, the substance is currently not posing a danger. For the full story, click here.

A Chicago train line faced delays after a deadly train accident occurred near Gary, Indiana. The accident resulted in a car accident fatality where the driver of a car was alleged to have run into the train. There is no word yet on if a personal injury lawsuit will be filed by train passengers or if defective railroad gates are to blame. The car train accident has left the automobile driver dead but there were no injured train passengers. To read more about this story click here.

More than a dozen persons who received personal injuries in a deadly commuter rail crash accuse the engineer's employer of ignoring complaints that he regularly used his cell phone while operating trains. A personal injury lawsuit was recently filed on behalf of 23 plaintiffs, including passengers who were injured or killed on the train.

For the full article.

Railroad companies will soon be immune from state personal injury lawsuits thanks to a late filed regulation that the Transportation Safety Administration adopted recently. Like in other premises, the Bush Administration states that state personal injury lawsuits and other tort lawsuits are impliedly pre-empted by federal law. But, the American Association for Justice disagrees and says that Congress in a 2007 measure related to a train accident expressed that it did not intend to pre-empt state personal injury claims.

For the full article.

A recent analysis has found that one commuter rail system has a higher fatality rate than most larger systems throughout the country. The Metrolink commuter system was responsible for almost two-thirds of the nation’s passenger wrongful deaths in train accidents over the past six years.

For the full article.

According to the Chicago Police Department, the truck driver whose semi truck crashed into the CTA Red Line station on Cermak last week possessed prescription drugs that were not prescribed to him. While in custody, the driver refused a urine test, a method police often use to detect controlled substances, and behaved oddly, leading some to suspect that he may have been under the influence of drugs when the truck crashed. Currently, Chicago lawyers have filed personal injury lawsuits in Chicago against the driver and have named the trucking company, Whiteline Express, in the truck accident lawsuit. Chicago Police plan to interview other semi truck drivers to determine if it is common for semi truck drivers to use controlled substances at work.

Please read more here.

The investigation into the horrific semi truck accident at the CTA’s Cermak red line stop last week continues. Currently, the Chicago Police Department is investigating the truck crash to determine if any foul pay was afoot, if the driver’s fatigue or substance use may have caused the crash, or if mechanical error caused the truck to crash. As of today, the Chicago Police Department has only given the driver a negligent driving ticket; this may mean that negligent driving caused a truck accident.

Read more here.