The mothers of two New Brunswick high-school basketball players who lost their lives in a van crash four years ago lament that little has been done since then to ban 15-passenger vans for student travel.
Again, why your legal rights to redress injury and wrongful death are so important. Don't get fooled by so-called tort reform laws.
KENS-TV in San Antonio, TX recently ran this special report on the dangers
of 15-passenger vans, like the Ford E-350.
From the NHTSA website: "As part of a comprehensive plan for reducing the serious risk of rollover crashes and the risk of death and serious injury in those crashes, this rule establishes Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) No. 126 to require electronic stability control (ESC) systems on passenger cars, multipurpose passenger vehicles, trucks, and buses with a gross vehicle weight rating of 4,536 Kg (10,000 pounds) or less. ESC systems use automatic computer-controlled braking of individual wheels to assist the driver in maintaining control in critical driving situations. NHTSA estimates ESC will reduce single-vehicle crashes of passenger cars by 34% and single vehicle crashes of sport utility vehicles (SUVs) by 59%, with a much greater reduction of rollover crashes. NHTSA estimates ESC would save 5,300 to 9,600 lives and prevent 156,000 to 238,000 injuries in all types of crashes annually once all light vehicles on the road are equipped with ESC."
The final rule is here.
A Sacramento Superior Court jury today awarded three plaintiffs $73 million in damages in a negligence lawsuit against the Ford Motor Company over a church van crash seven years ago that killed two people and injured two more.
The awards included $50 million in punitive damages for what the jurors agreed was "despicable" conduct on the part of the automaker.
MILWAUKEE- Passenger vans with a well documented reputation for deadly roll-over accidents are still in use by Wisconsin child care providers, despite calls for safer ways to transport children to and from school.As other states were banning child care providers from using these vans, Wisconsin's Department of Children and Families released a policy in 2010 telling providers to carry on.
He steered left into the grassy median and tried to bring it back right. The van flipped sideways, rolled over four times, ejected Brownell and passenger Tony Mauro and left both of them dead on the side of the road.
Seven years later, Bessonov and five other plaintiffs are taking on the Ford Motor Co. in a Sacramento Superior Court civil trial. They say the van was dangerous and that Ford knew it yet did nothing to notify its customers about its alleged defects.
It's been just over a year since 14 teenagers with First Baptist Church of Montgomery survived a near death experience. Those teens were traveling to a summer youth camp about an hour from Montgomery when their 15-passenger van flipped after it blew a tire.
God speed...
WILSON (WTVD) -- The North Carolina Highway Patrol is investigating a passenger van crash that injured several people Monday afternoon in Wilson County.
A witness told ABC11 Eyewitness News the injured passengers pulled others out of the van.
The crash happened on Hornes Church Road near I-95.
"I was coming down to my mom's house and I heard the skid marks," eyewitness Brenda Harris explained.
Harris said when she turned the corner; she saw what was at the end of those skid marks.
"By this time, the van had flipped and there were people crawling and everything and people were pulling others out of the van, and people were just hollering and screaming, you know, in shock," she added.
The Highway Patrol said it does not know why the 15-passenger van wrecked.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration research statistics state that 15-passenger vans are involved in more single-vehicle accidents involving rollovers than any other passenger vehicle and that 81 percent of 15-passenger van occupant fatalities occur in single-vehicle rollover accidents. The data also shows that the risk of a rollover accident is greatly increased when 10 or more people ride in a 15-passenger van. The NHTSA states that 15-passenger vans carrying 10 passengers have a rollover rate in single-vehicle accidents that is nearly three times higher than the rate of those carrying fewer than 10 passengers and nearly six times higher when carrying 15 passengers. Some states have even enacted laws restricting the use of 15-passenger vans and requiring a CDL to drive them. Most buyers want to avoid these vans at all costs
NewsChannel 5 Investigates discovered a long history of problems with the type of van involved in the fatal crash in Humphreys County that claimed the life of a 14-year-old girl.
The 15-passenger vans are one of the most dangerous vehicles on the road in terms of rollover. It's against federal law for schools to buy them to transport children.
