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Multi-vehicle accident

A recent multi-vehicle accident on the Garden State Parkway was remarkable in one sense in that a motorcycle rider involved in the collision and ultimately ejected from his motorcycle only received minor injuries. Though motorcycle riders are on our roadways legally and have the same rights to be riding there as anyone else, it’s not unusual for such a motorcycle accident to result in a motorcycle fatality.

Even if a motorcycle rider survives a crash, the prognosis is usually not good. There is a good chance that such a rider will suffer a catastrophic injury, face long term hospitalization, be unable to work, and have to deal with possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical expenses.

It’s not surprising that motorcycle accidents often end with the death of a rider. Unfortunately, motorcycle accidents are often extremely serious in nature because of the vulnerability of the riders and because other individuals on the road are not always paying careful attention to the presences of motorcycles. Riders of motorcycles are also prone to being thrown, and once thrown often land on their head or back.

In the above accident, a vehicle stalled on the parkway because it ran out of gas. Possibly because the driver was unable to get the car over to the side of the road, it was subsequently struck by the motorcycle rider. However, the accident did not end with this collision as there were added complications.

An off-duty police officer arrived on the scene and attempted to help the two drivers out of their vehicle, but the officer’s vehicle and the stalled vehicle were subsequently struck by another vehicle. Still another vehicle then collided with the mass of vehicles on the parkway as well. One of the vehicles then went up in flames.

Again, it was fortunate that the motorcycle rider in question was not injured more seriously. With such complexity, cases of this type deserve careful handling and likely require the expertise of an experienced attorney to sort everything out.

Source: Berkeley Patch, “Four-car Pileup Injures Three on Southbound Garden State Parkway,” by Graelyn Brashear, Dec. 27, 2011