Any time a big rig crashes on a freeway in the Los Angeles area, the effect of the accident is not limited to the freeway where it occurred. Even if no one is injured in the mishap, the blockage of lanes will force drivers to find alternate routes. Now, a recent study has identified stretches on four area highways that have the highest number of tractor-trailer accidents per year.
The Southern California Association of Governments has just released a report that identifies four freeway sections in Los Angeles County that have the highest concentrations of truck crashes per annum. The stretches are the 710/60 interchange, with 7.2 accidents per year, the 710 between 105 and 91, with 5.8 collisions per year, the junction of 60 and 57, with 6 accidents per year, and I-5 between 710 and 10, with 6.6 crashes.
Human error such as speeding accounts for most of these accidents, but other causes in the identified accident “hot spots” include congestion, limited highway capacity, a high percentage of merging traffic and the intermixing of big rigs and smaller vehicles. The high volume of trans-oceanic shipping that uses Los Angeles Harbor also makes the LA freeways especially busy. Solutions being studied include the building of separate truck lanes, which, in some cases, could be elevated above the rest of the freeway. Government officials stress that the most effective way to combat truck accidents is safer driving by both truck drivers and automobile drivers.
Truck accidents will continue to injure and kill people for the foreseeable future. If a person has been injured or lost a loved one in a big rig accident, a consultation with an attorney who specializes in such cases may provide a helpful analysis of the circumstances of the accident and an estimate of the likelihood of recovering damages from the responsible parties.
Source: Los Angeles Times, “California Commute: 4 stretches of freeways tally most big rig crashes per mile annually,” Dan Weikel, June 2, 2015
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