Garbage Truck Accidents

Garbage trucks are as much a part of everyday life in Florida as Publix and alligators.  You hear them snorting and thundering down your street at sunrise several times per week, a few hours before the school bus makes its rounds.  You can avoid crossing paths with the garbage truck simply by being a night owl, but people whose work begins earlier in the day cannot, and garbage trucks have to drive on the main streets of the city sometime, too.  They have to make several pickups per day from shopping centers and large apartment complexes, where it would be a nuisance to leave the dumpsters full for 24 hours.  There is nothing unique about the garbage truck situation in Florida, except that in the 90s, the garbage trucks used to bear signs that said “free snow removal” and “we cater weddings,” and in Florida, there is a wider variety of creatures that scramble to feast on your trash before the garbage truck picks it up.  In addition to the opossums, raccoons, and foxes that you find at dumpster buffets across the Southeastern United States, the likes of nutria and iguanas want a piece of the trash feast in Florida.  Being motor vehicles, garbage trucks can cause serious injury in the event of a collision.  A Jacksonville car accident lawyer can help you if you were injured when your car collided with a garbage truck.

How Safe Is It for Something So Big and Stinky to Share the Road With Cars, Bicycles, and Pedestrians?

The good news about garbage trucks is that, unlike 18-wheelers, they usually are not going very fast when they encounter cars.  Garbage trucks stop in front of every house in residential neighborhoods.  Even when they are picking up trash from commercial properties, they stop multiple times within a small radius.  This means that they make frequent stops in parking lots and in heavily populated residential areas.  They can easily run afoul of drivers trying to get in and out of driveways and parking spaces.  The biggest danger, though, is that garbage trucks are a distraction, with their noise and their stench.

A Garbage Truck Is Just Another Motor Vehicle

There is nothing uniquely trashy about most garbage truck accidents, especially the ones that occur on public roads.  For example, in December 2023, a Toyota Corolla collided with a garbage truck in Tampa.  The Corolla made a left turn and collided with a garbage truck that was driving straight ahead in a lane of traffic across which the Corolla was turning.  A woman who was in the passenger seat of the Corolla suffered fatal injuries as a result of the collision.  The man driving the garbage truck and the woman driving the Corolla were not injured seriously enough to require hospitalization.

Contact Douglas & Douglas About Car Accident Cases

A North Florida personal injury lawyer can help you if you got injured in a traffic accident involving a garbage truck.  Contact Douglas & Douglas in Jacksonville, Florida for a free consultation.

Source:

wtsp.com/article/news/local/hillsboroughcounty/fhp-tampa-woman-dies-following-collision-with-garbage-truck/67-83582d92-2592-4c79-bc1b-390b5b0063e0