Early Saturday, January 23, a tanker truck delivering fuel from Brooklyn to Long Island attempted to pass a car on the Long Island Expressway. The vehicle had slowed down due to mechanical problems and was preparing to pull onto the shoulder when the tanker truck driver attempted to veer around the car, but hit it instead. The tanker rolled over and exploded, killing the driver of the tanker truck.

The driver of the car was pulled from the vehicle by a passerby. She was taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries and released.

The tanker driver was described as a 50-year-old man. Kittery Transport of Maine owned the tanker.

Emergency crews reportedly struggled for three hours to put out the flames with foam. Westbound lanes of the expressway reopened in the early evening, but the eastbound lanes remained closed.

Every year, hundreds of people are injured and killed due to commercial truck accidents. While a majority of these accidents injure, maim, and kill the occupants of the smaller vehicles, truck drivers are often crushed or trapped in their rigs and die of their injuries.

If you or a loved one has been injured in a truck accident, please contact the Accident Lawyers Network to find an experienced personal injury attorney in your area for an initial consultation.

A 104-year-old former Coney Island, New York strong man was struck and killed by a minivan on Monday, January 11 while on his morning walk. The man, Joe Rollino, was crossing Bay Ridge Parkway in Brooklyn just before 7:00am when the accident occurred.

Rollino was taken to Lutheran Medical Center with fractures to his ribs, chest, face, and pelvis, as well as head trauma. He died later that day.

Rollino claimed he walked five miles every day, rain or shine. He avoided cigarettes, alcohol, and meat. At the peak of his strength, he weighed anywhere between 125 and 150 pounds and stood 5-foot-5. Some of his accomplishments include lifting 475 pounds using only his teeth, biting down on and then bending quarters with his thumb, raising 635 pounds with one finger (what he once said was his proudest moment), and moving 3200 pounds with his back.

He was not officially the world's strongest man, but pound for pound was among the strongest. He had an incredible life and was among the legends of New York City. All of this gone in one accident.

Authorities say the woman who struck Rollino was not charged and that drugs and alcohol were not factors. She was given a summons for a defective horn. Rollino was not walking in the crosswalk when he was struck.

If you or a loved one has been injured in a pedestrian accident, please contact the Accident Lawyers Network to find an experienced personal injury lawyer in your area.

Fourteen people were injured on Tuesday when the wagon they were riding in was rear-ended by a car in Stanley, Virginia. Around 20 people, adults and children, were riding in the wagon that was part of a holiday tradition on benches that had wrought-iron sides and backs.

Police say the driver who hit them was in a Ford Mustang and was not paying attention when it slammed into the wagon. The wagon driver was knocked into a yard and the Clydesdale horses pulling the wagon ran another hundred yards. The wagon hit an electric pole and the horses bolted. The wagon driver and 13 others were taken to area hospitals. The wagon driver suffered internal injuries and another woman has a compound fracture of her leg.

Police have said drugs and alcohol are not suspected at this time, but are unsure why the driver didn't see the wagon. It was equipped with reflective signs and tape, flashing lights, and holiday lights, so it should have been easy to see. This is the first time in the 20 year tradition that something like this has happened.

If you or a loved one has been injured in an auto accident or pedestrian accident, please contact an experienced personal injury lawyer in your area.

Three young men were killed when the car they were in skidded off the road and slammed into a tree on Sunday, November 29. The driver suffered minor injuries. California Highway Patrol believes the 2006 Subaru Impreza was speeding when the teenage driver lost control just after midnight.

A16-year-old and a 20-year-old, died at the scene. An 18-year-old died later at Sutter Roseville Medical Center.

Friends who knew the group had seen them less than an hour before the auto accident and said they were going "drifting." Drifting is intentionally putting a speeding car into a spin. This is a major part of the movie The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. These same friends, some of whom were involved in drifting, now believe it to be unsafe. At least one didn't believe anyone could die from doing something like this. However, investigators have not determined if drifting was the cause of the accident. The do know that drugs and alcohol were not causes.

The combination of an inexperienced driver, speed, and attempting to perform something seen in a movie are three indicators that will more likely than not lead to an accident. The driver may be charged with vehicular manslaughter, and this is something he'll have to live with for the rest of his life. Still, this is small compared to the families whose sons or brothers were killed.

If you have lost a loved one in an auto accident due to another's negligence, please contact an experienced personal injury attorney in your area.

Two people were killed and 21 injured when a casino bus overturned on the highway outside Austin, Minnesota yesterday afternoon. Two of those injured are in critical condition. The bus was returning from a casino visit in Northwoood, Iowa, and heading east when it crossed the median and westbound lanes, then left I-90 and landed in a ditch on the right side of the road.

A spokesman from the Minnesota Department of Public Safety says that the weather conditions were good at the time of the bus accident and that it is still under investigation. The driver is still in serious condition and it is unknown at this time what information can be given. However, several of the passengers have given statements to investigators.

Anytime there is a bus accident involving a tour bus or casino bus, the condition of the driver and the bus itself are taken into consideration. Was the driver asleep or under the influence? Was the driver speeding? Were they even paying attention? Were the brakes working? Was the weather or angle of the sun a factor? With so many questions to answer, it may take investigators time to find answers. This may not be comforting to the victims and their families, especially to those who died.

In the meantime, it is important that those on the bus or families of those on the bus speak to an experienced bus accident attorney in their area. An attorney can help get the compensation needed to cover medical bills or future lost earnings.

If you or a loved one has been injured in a bus accident, please contact the Accident Lawyers Network to find an experienced bus accident attorney in your area for an initial consultation.

The new S-curve of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge has seen its share of accidents since opening Labor Day weekend. Early Monday morning, a truck driver was killed when his rig crashed through the guardrail and fell 200 feet onto Yerba Buena Island.

Witnesses report the driver was travelling at least 50 mph as he approached the S-curve. The posted speed limit is 40 mph. The driver had filled his trailer with pears just before driving toward the bridge. Authorities believe that the combination of speed and the heavy load caused the truck accident. The rig exploded sending pears everywhere.

Once again, as has happened so many times since Labor Day, the highway was closed so CHP could investigate.

In addition to lowering the speed limit from 50 mph to 40 mph, flashing lights warning drivers of the S-curve have been installed. A Caltrans spokesperson has said there is nothing wrong with the design of the highway. Rather, it's the excessive speed of drivers. "Every single accident has been the result of speed," he says.

In addition to lowering the speed limit and flashing lights, reflectors and raised bumps between lanes will alert drivers if they are drifting. Radar signs will also show drivers how fast they are going.

Since the beginning of September, there have been an estimated 42 accidents just in this one stretch of I-80. Though many of the accidents can be explained as because the driver had grown used to the straight road they travelled on hundreds of time before they were now driving in unfamiliar roads, complacency is another reason people have auto accidents. Speed limits, flashing lights, radar, and highway bumps can only go so far in protecting drivers. Changing behavior will save more lives than these solutions.

If you have been involved in an auto accident or truck accident, please contact the Accident Lawyers Network to find an experienced personal injury lawyer in your area today.

An Amtrak train on its way from New York to Florida struck and killed a 13-year-old boy outside of Elkton, Maryland on Sunday. The boy and two of his friends were walking along the tracks Sunday afternoon.

The victim's friends had already crossed the tracks when he was hit by the train. Investigators estimate the train was traveling around 100mph at the time of the incident. It took emergency workers, police, relatives, and nearby residents 20 minutes to find the victim's body.

Though it is illegal, and obviously unsafe, to walk along train tracks, lots of people do it. The law, put in place to cut down on the number of those maimed and killed by trains, is not always enforced. Rail roadways act as a direct route into many communities. They are often safer than walking alongside highways and roads. The difference is that you have a better chance of surviving being hit by a vehicle than you do a train.

Be that as it may, pedestrian accidents involving a train are uncommon, but in some areas of the country where trains tend to rumble through communities with regularity, several accidents may occur every year. People may become complacent when they hear the whistle they've heard so many times before. Crossing the tracks seems second nature after doing it for so long, and since they've never been hurt before, why should these people give any more thought to being struck than they otherwise do?

If you have lost a loved one when they were struck by a train, please contact an experienced pedestrian accident attorney in your area today.