Man Dies After Being Ejected From jeep In Three-Vehicle Crash

The northbound lanes of Interstate 71 were closed for three hours on December 20, 2011, after a motorist was killed in a three-vehicle accident, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. A news release stated that the driver’s side of a 2006 Freightliner semi tractor-trailer and the passenger side of a 2002 Honda Accord hit each other while both vehicles were changing lanes. According to the Enquirer, the Accord then struck a Jeep Wrangler that then rolled over multiple times.

Cincinnati Police Lieutenant Bruce Hoffbauer told the Enquirer that the driver of the Jeep killed in the accident, 62-year-old Jeffrey W. Derrow, was not wearing a seat belt and likely thrown from the wreckage after his roof detached. The two other vehicles were damaged but nobody else was hurt.

We wrote earlier this week about another fatality in another three-vehicle accident attributed to failure to buckle up, but Hoffbauer—who heads Cincinnati’s traffic investigation unit—told the Enquirer that “crashes with ejection are highly unusual.” He also said that more people are adhering to the state’s seat-belt requirement and vehicles are equipped with more safety features to prevent ejections. The Enquirer also noted that only 3,620 of the 251,737 traffic crashes reported to the Ohio Department of Public Safety this year involved “total ejection” of a person, and 290 of those ejected died.

The accident is still under investigation and it will be interesting to see which party the police determine was at fault for this wreck. Could the Accord have been in the Freightliner’s blind spot? Was the accident the result of a failure to install mirrors for blind spots? Questions like these represent why it is essential to secure a truck immediately after a truck accident.

Moore Law Firm – Cincinnati truck accident attorneys