Utah Law Talk

A man is dead after losing control on an icy patch of I-15 in Spanish Fork. According to KSL News, the man, 21 year old Bryce Christensen, was traveling north on I-15 on January 7, 2009 around 8 a.m. when the back of his Toyota RAV4 was struck by a Ford SUV. The driver of the Ford had actually lost control of his or her vehicle after hitting a patch of ice. This all happened when the Ford driver was attempting to merge onto northbound I-15 from Route 6. After the impact occurred, Christensen’s vehicle careened into the median wall and bounced back into the main lanes of travel to be then broadsided by a semi truck. Bryce Christensen was taken to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center, but unfortunately, died a few hours later. A citation is pending against the driver of the Ford.

My condolences to the family of this man. It sounds like he was driving prudently in one of the right lanes when this all happened. From the facts of the story, I can’t see that Mr. Christensen contributed in anyway to the car accident. I also feel for the driver of the Ford. I’m sure he didn’t intend for this accident to happen, certainly not for it to happen the way that it did.

In most situations where car accidents occur in icy or snowy weather, it is because the driver is driving too fast for conditions or has faulty equipment, such as tires that are not in good condition to do well on snowy or icy roads. Although people like to blame God for crashes like this, the fact is that almost all of these crashes are because of human error. We hear this same thing from the UHP: that motorists are driving too fast for conditions and that they are not keeping enough distance between their car and the one in front of them.

In this case, I definitely see a claim against the driver of the Ford and possibly a claim against the driver and/or company of the semi-truck (although the crash may simply have been unavoidable). The family may also make a claim on the “under-insured” policy that was on the Toyota. (In situations like this, claims are almost always made against the insurance companies that insure these vehicles.) I would recommend that the family talk to a Utah accident/injury attorney that focuses on car accident cases to explore the legal remedies that may be available to them.

Published by: Ron Kramer

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 8th, 2009 at 1:56 pm and is filed under Dog Bites, Legal News, Trucking Accident, Vehicle Injury, Wrongful Death, text messaging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.