Sulphur Springs, TX — May 19, 2024, Lyle Lewinson and Stephen Lewinson were injured due to a truck accident at around midnight on Hillcrest Drive South.
According to officials, the crash took place just off the intersection of Hillcrest (Highway 11) and Shannon Road West (I-30).
In their statements, officials said that 60-year-old Stephen Lewinson and 92-year-old Lyle Lewinson were in a Toyota Prius that was going southbound along Hillcrest. From the northbound lanes, it appears a tractor-trailer lost one of its tires, and it went into southbound lanes where it struck the Toyota. As a result, Lyle Lewinson had apparently serious injuries. Stephen Lewinson possibly had minor injuries.
Right now, the cause of the tire coming loose isn’t clear.
Commentary by Attorney Michael Grossman
There’s a tendency to write off this sort of thing as a freak accident, but that shouldn’t be taken to mean the accident was unavoidable. I’ve handled hundreds of commercial vehicle accidents, and sudden catastrophic failures like this are often predictable and preventable. Here’s why.
It might surprise people to see how many companies out there simply ignore what should be basic safety practices. As a result, dangerous conditions go unaddressed until they inevitably culminate in people getting hurt. For one, a trained truck driver during a pre-trip check should either be able to catch that a wheel isn’t secured properly or that it’s in a state of disrepair. If they’re inexperienced or simply too lazy to do their jobs right, they can overlook serious issues and continue driving with dangerous machinery.
On top of that, some of those drivers, work for companies who don’t give a damn about them or the unsuspecting public around them. They’ll routinely skip maintenance until parts deteriorate to the point of catastrophic failure. They’re counting on the fact authorities often begin and end their investigations at the crash scene, so they’ll put all of the blame on a driver while the employer who created all of the necessary conditions for a serious accident can throw their driver under the bus, replace them, and continue putting lives at risk for the sake of their bottom line.
To be clear, it is possible something sudden and unavoidable happened here, like a manufacturing defect the driver and their employer couldn’t have possibly foreseen. But I bring up these more common possibilities to emphasize how important it is to get accidents like this into the hands of experienced accident reconstructionists. The mistakes that tend to lead to a loose truck wheel accident are ones that, if left unchallenged, will likely persist until they get more people hurt. Getting people the help they need and seeing wrongdoers held accountable is reason enough to consider a crash from all possible angles. Preventing future accidents is just all the more reason to get a crash like this in the hands of professionals who will make sure nothing and no one slips through the cracks.
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