One person died and another was seriously injured after a crash on the Inner Loop of the Washington DC Beltway on June 23. 

The Virginia State Police stated that a pickup truck that was pulling a boat had stopped on the median on westbound I-495 in Springfield Virginia. This area of the Beltway is known locally as the Mixing Bowl.

Two men in the truck got out of the truck to secure the boat. At that moment, a box truck drifted over the median and slammed into the boat and one of the men. The other pedestrian was hit by debris.

Both men were taken to a local hospital. One of the men, a football coach for James Madison High School in Vienna, Virginia, died. The other man is being treated for life-threatening injuries.

The driver of the box truck was not hurt.

Our View

Our tractor trailer and truck crash attorneys licensed in Virginia are saddened that this preventable truck accident killed one man and seriously injured another.

Distracted driving causes far too many deaths and injuries in America today. While we cannot say for certain why the truck driver drifted over the median and slammed into these men, distracted driving of some kind was surely involved.

According to Geico, here are some tips to prevent distracted driving, which can lead to terrible accidents with serious injury or death: 

• Use cell phones only for emergencies. When a vehicle is moving, a cell phone should only be used in an emergency. Even if something happens, you still should pull over to the shoulder of the road to make a call. Even hands-free phones or devices can distract drivers and lead to accidents.
• No social calls or texting should ever be conducted while driving, period.
• If you are sleepy, don’t push it. Pull over and take a nap. Drowsiness while driving increases your chances of a wreck by four times. You should at least pull over, get out of the car and walk around in a safe area before continuing to drive. Just getting some fresh air for a few minutes can wake you up.
• Do not eat and drink and drive. Your focus should be on your driving and nothing else.

These types of tragic truck crashes often lead to wrongful death lawsuits in Virginia and other states. If it can be shown in court that the driver of the truck was negligent, the family of the deceased could be entitled to a large wrongful death settlement.