When debris from an 18-wheeler comes close to being a lethal weapon

Clore Law · May 3 2012

A forty-two-year-old man and his wife were driving across a rural highway and found out the tragic way just what can happen when flying debris from an 18-wheeler turns out to be a 20-pound chunk of steel. A brake drum fragmented off a passing tractor-trailer and flew through the driver's windshield and left the driver with permanent brain injury. Fortunately, the couple survived, thanks to the quick thinking of the wife, who took over the wheel. A lawsuit against the trucking company revealed numerous safety violations with the trucking rig and trailer. Although the trucking company claimed that other manufacturers of the air brake assembly led to the brake drum fragmentation, the Clore Law Group settled the multimillion-dollar lawsuit for the man and his family in 2009 after showing how the brake drums had suffered metal fatigue from driver abuse in "burning up" the brakes and the trucking company's failure to replace them.