Car Accident: Who's to Blame When a Car Crosses Over?

Refugio County, TXA car accident is everyone's worst nightmare, as you never know when, and if it's going to happen. Will your loved ones be hurt in an automobile crash? Will they die? It may be a morbid thought, but death and injury from car crashes is something that weighs in the back of everyone's mind every time they slip behind the wheel.

For 27-year-old Leticia Alvarado, A Corpus Christi mother of three, the worst of both worlds happened when she was driving her kids home from a shopping trip. They never made it home. What would have, and should have been an ordinary day in the life of a young mother and her three kids, was anything but.

The day ended with Avarado and her son in hospital, in critical condition. Her two lovely daughters, meanwhile, were never coming home again.

The Texas car accident happened in mid-morning. It had been raining, and the roads were wet. Alvarado was just heading home in the family SUV with her three kids in tow, when she lost control on the wet pavement and skidded into oncoming traffic.

Critics of highway construction will say that every highway should have a concrete median separating the two directions of traffic. Every roadway, in fact. If there were, Alvarado's two daughters might be alive today.

Instead, the SUV skidded over the centerline unprotected by a barrier of any kind, and careened right into the path of an 18-wheeler semi.

Leticia Alvarado was thrown clear from the SUV, as were her two daughters—13-year-old Alisha Alvarado, and 3-year-old Skyler Mendoza. Both girls were killed instantly. Leticia was critically injured. Her son Roman, aged 2, was the only person who remained strapped into the SUV after it crashed. The tot was rushed to hospital with a broken leg and neck injury.

The driver of the 18-wheeler, not surprisingly, was fine.

It is not clear, nor was it initially reported, whether or not the driver and her two daughters were wearing their seat belts when the crash occurred, or whether the restraints were no match for the force of impact with such a large vehicle. It is assumed that the boy, aged 2, was strapped in a child safety seat given his age.

It was also not reported as to why the driver lost control of her vehicle, and the circumstances leading up to the loss of control. Perhaps the kids were arguing. Perhaps the driver swerved to avoid something in the road. The pavement WAS wet at the time.

Who's to blame here?

The fact remains, however, that there would have been no median barrier separating the two, diverging directions of traffic. Some major highways, in major metropolitan cities have such barriers. However most highways and roads do not. Therefore as a driver you must trust that the vehicle hurtling towards you, a vehicle that will be inches from your driver's-side door once the vehicles are side-by-side (in opposing directions), will stay in its respective lane. You also have to hope that nothing you do, or a failing with your vehicle, doesn't cause you to drift into theirs.

A car is no match for an 18-wheeler. Any car accident involving a truck and a much smaller vehicle would be met with horrific consequences. And to be fair, most of the nation's roads were designed decades before the level of truck traffic on the nation's roads increased dramatically. However, little has been done to retrofit the nation's roads in response to this truck traffic.

And what if it wasn't a truck coming the other way? What if it was a family travelling in a small micro-wagon, or sub-compact—vehicles that are all the rage right now given the worsening economy? There they are, minding their own business, just winding along the road when suddenly a much-larger SUV crosses the centerline and crashes into them.

Resulting in, potentially, even more carnage.

Critics will say that any road carrying opposing directions of traffic without a median barrier is an accident waiting to happen. Others have said that designing roads in such fashion borders on criminal irresponsibility. Back in the day vehicles were relatively the same size. They all had frames, and plenty of sheet metal. It was a more level playing field.

Since that time, however, vehicles have changed. They are far more diverse. Truck traffic has multiplied. And speeds are increasing. And yet, nothing has been done to retrofit the nation's road network, to address this new reality.

A car accident might have been avoided with the presence of a median barrier. Instead, an automobile crash claimed two young lives. Why did the SUV skid out of control? Was it driver error, or wet roads? A combination of both? But here's another question—would the presence of a centre median, prevent such carnage? Would two little girls be alive today? And while on the subject of car crashes, what if it was a smaller car coming the other way? The truck driver walked away. But what if the occupants of a much smaller vehicle, didn't survive when the SUV coming the other way suddenly veered into their lane and hit them head- on?

Do you sue the other driver?

Or…do you sue whoever built the road?