Upshur County, TX — February 24, 2024, Tristan Miller was killed following a rollover car accident at around 4:21 a.m. along U.S. Highway 259.
According to information released by authorities, the crash took place in the area of U.S. 259 and Cypress Creek Road.
Current statements indicate that 33-year-old Tristan Miller was in a Ford Expedition going northbound along the highway. For reasons which can’t be confirmed right now, the vehicle lost control. It veered off the left side of the road before veering back right and off the opposite side of the road. There, Miller’s vehicle then flipped over. Details say Miller was thrown from the vehicle, and he sustained fatal injuries. There did not appear to be anyone else involved in the accident.
Commentary by Attorney Michael Grossman
My concern with single-vehicle wrecks like this is they rarely get the attention they deserve. If authorities aren’t particularly equipped to handle complex possible factors, they can easily overlook important details. For example, authorities here say the victim was thrown from the vehicle. Did they look into why, and if so, how did they go about doing so? Let me explain why this is a concern.
A little while back, our firm handled a case where a victim was thrown from their vehicle, and authorities said it was because the victim didn’t have their seatbelt on But how did they know this? Well, they didn’t, really. They just knew that ninety-nine times out of a hundred, that’s why people are thrown from their vehicle. If they’d actually done proper investigations, though, they’d have found what our independent investigations did: that this crash was that one exception where a defect led to the seatbelt failing to work properly.
In other words, authorities in that example blamed someone for something they couldn’t have possibly known about. Common or not, that happens enough that it’s important to consider it after any serious crash. Right now, I don’t see any reason to think this crash will be an exception to that. I can only hope the investigations are in the hands of professionals who feel the same.
