Torrance County, NM — April 17, 2024, one person was killed and another was injured in an RV versus 18-wheeler accident at approximately 10:30 a.m. along I.H. 40.
According to authorities, the accident took place in the eastbound lanes of Interstate Highway 40 in the vicinity east of Moriarty, New Mexico.
Though the cause of the accident remains unclear, officials indicate that the collision involved both an RV and an 18-wheeler that had a trailer in tow. The collision caused both vehicles to become completely engulfed in flames which resultantly spread to roadside vegetation.
One victim reportedly incurred fatal injuries as a result of the wreck and was declared deceased at the scene. Another victim suffered apparently critical injuries and was transported to a local medical facility by emergency medical services in order to receive immediate treatment. No other injuries have been reported.
Additional details pertaining to this incident—including the identities of the victims—are not available at this point in time. The investigation is currently ongoing.
Commentary by Attorney Michael Grossman
As I mentioned before, there isn’t really much information about what caused this wreck. I suspect that most people will focus on uncovering the events that led to the collision between the two vehicles, but I’d caution people not to overlook what caused the resulting fire. This might seem irrelevant, but crashes involving vehicles that catch fire obviously result in more fatalities and more severe injuries than those that don’t. And most people likely aren’t aware that many vehicle fires could be prevented through better vehicle design.
Now, I don’t want this to come off sounding like a conspiracy theory. There are plenty of crashes with the impact is so severe that a fire is likely to result regardless of how well designed the vehicle is. However, there are also a fair number of crashes where the fire results due to a bad design or poor manufacturing.
I bring this up because defects that cause fires are often overlooked in a typical crash investigation. For example, dozens of people died in Jeep Cherokee fires years before someone pieced together that the gas tank was in a bad spot that was bound to catch fire in rear-end collisions. Does this mean that a defect definitely played a role in this crash? Of course not.
The point I’m trying to make is that it’s something investigators should look into at the very least in order to rule it out. I’m of the opinion that investigators should go where the evidence takes them. With that being said, when investigators don’t think to look in order to gather, examine, and analyze all the evidence, then there’s no way they can get to the truth.
