Sometimes, tractor trailer accidents can make a big mess on the road. In some cases, when cargo spills out of a trailer, there is no real danger to the public or to the environment besides the potential for accidents to occur as people get curious and look at the mess instead of paying attention to driving. At other times, cargo that spills from a wrecked truck can be a significant threat to human and environmental safety.
A recent tractor trailer crash near the Mississippi-Louisiana state line left letters and packages strewn about the accident scene. The truck was carrying mail to California, but the mail that was in the trailer will not reach its destination as quickly as it would have if the wreck had not occurred. It was wet when the mail tumbled out onto the road, and the mail had to be collected off of the road, put into a truck, and brought to New Orleans, where it will get dried out before it continues its journey to California.
Fortunately, there were no reports of other accidents happening in the vicinity of the crashed mail truck. The envelopes and packages that ended up on the road did not cause any threat to human or environmental health and safety. There have been other trucking accidents in Mississippi and throughout America where the truck’s cargo created health and environmental hazards that had to be addressed quickly by Hazardous Materials Response Teams (HAZMAT). For example, one tractor trailer that overturned was loaded with naphtha. Law enforcement officers closed the road near the spill for twelve hours after the wreck and diverted traffic onto other roads while emergency response crews cleaned up the spill. The driver of the truck got hurt, and additional injuries resulted from accidents that happened in the midst of the heavy traffic throughout the surrounding area later that day.
Also, a tanker truck overturned during a collision with a pickup truck. The tanker truck was carrying a corrosive liquid, and some of it spilled onto the road. The road where the crash happened was closed for several hours. Area residents were advised to stay in their homes and not go outside so that they would not get exposed to chemical fumes. Many hazardous materials are transported by truck every day in the United States. Between 2004 and 2013, over three thousand of the truck crashes that happened on American roads involved hazardous materials. Ninety-one people died in those accidents, and much more were injured. In addition to their impact on human lives, the wrecks caused over four hundred and fifty million dollars’ worth of property damage.
Barrett Law PLLC: Helping People Hurt By Mississippi Trucking Accidents
Accidents involving tractor trailers can cause death, injury, and property damage. Some tractor trailer accidents can even spill cargo onto the roadway, which could create even more danger if the cargo is a hazardous substance or creates the risk of additional accidents. To learn more about Mississippi trucking accidents, call the knowledgeable Mississippi Personal Injury Attorneys at Barrett Law PLLC, at 1 (800) 707-9577 today.