Posted on 11/03/2017 4:12:29 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The parents of a medical school student killed in a 2015 Pembroke Pines crash were awarded $45 million in damages.
After a three-week trial that concluded Thursday, jurors awarded Jennifer and Reginald Astaphan damages in connection with the death of their 29-year-old son, Jonathan Raymond Astaphan, of Dominica.
Ranger Construction Industries, of West Palm Beach, was ordered to pay $35 million in damages; Juan Calero, the driver of the tractor-trailer in the chain-reaction crash, was ordered to pay an additional $10,005,000.
Astaphan was killed May 28, 2015, along Interstate 75 near Pines Boulevard as he crossed paths with a flatbed tractor-trailer hauling concrete barriers out of a construction area on the median. Calero blocked all of the highway’s lanes as Astaphan and other drivers approached.
The impact propelled Astaphan's 2006 Mitsubishi Lancer and the truck about a quarter-mile down the highway, shearing off the Lancer's roof, authorities said. Astaphan died at the scene. His passenger, Patrissia Rolle, then 25, of Davie, survived.
As that collision happened, Liza Angulo, 17, struck the back of the flatbed truck, causing concrete barriers to fall on her 2013 BMW. The Miramar teen was instantly killed.
Moments later, a second tractor-trailer struck a fallen barrier wall and Calero’s trailer. Neither truck driver was hurt.
Stuart Ratzan, an attorney representing the Astaphan family, said the construction company failed to safely guide its vehicles out of construction areas and into lanes of traffic, causing the fatal crash. The jurors found Ranger and Calero’s negligence caused Astaphan’s death.
“This is a reminder that our third branch of government has great power to protect all of us from harm and death, to make us safe,” Ratzan said.
“You’ve got to care about human life. That was the purpose and the mission for us in this case,” he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sun-sentinel.com ...
It is amazing to me that people want to speed through construction zones. This is about the most dangerous thing you can do on the highway.
For the most part, hazards have been designed out of the highway system. On a well designed highway, it is rare to find something that you can hit hard that is not guarded by a rail or by collapsing barrels. Of course, there are exceptions to the well designed highway rule (I’m looking at you, Westchester County, NY).
But in a construction zone, there are all sorts of things that you can hit and hit hard. There are barriers, drop offs, trucks, and construction equipment that outweighs your puny car by a ratio of 50:1. Add to this obliterated traffic marks, loose gravel, and suddenly unfamiliar conditions, and a construction zone is a recipe for disaster.
Reducing speed from 75 MPH to 45 MPH through a five mile construction zone will cost you 2 minutes and 40 seconds. This is not too high a price to pay to save your life.
Jury Enters $45 Million Verdict in South Florida Crash That Killed 29 Year Old Medical Student
Driving 45 in a construction zone in some places is impossible. In New Jersey, people routinely whizz through them at 70.
Also, in Pennsylvania 7 years ago, I was in a construction zone on I-80 with a 45 mph limit, but I couldn’t get any lower than 55 because some mothertrucker was bearing down on my ass in a big rig.
You’re just making excuses.
Get over to the right and match your speed to the number on the sign. That big rig will not hit you. If you go 45 instead of 55, he will just go around.
“Driving 45 in a construction zone in some places is impossible. In New Jersey, people routinely whizz through them at 70.”
It looks like the concrete barriers flew through the air to land on the car. Either that or the barriers floated long enough for the car to run up under them.
“Reducing speed from 75 MPH to 45 MPH through a five mile construction zone will cost you 2 minutes and 40 seconds. This is not too high a price to pay to save your life.”
Exactly right.
You are dead on to the dangers In a construction zone. No car or light truck will ever win a fight with a backhoe, paving rig or a dump truck.
But people routinely act like idiots in construction zones.
Over the years I drove long haul I had many near misses in construction zones.
I would do my best to keep a safe following distance only to have cars, two or three at a time, swoop in front of me forcing me to brake hard.
People just do not consider their own mortality. The few seconds they hope to save seem more precious.
I-80 past the south side of Chicago was under construction for several years. Whenever possible I tried to go through late at night to avoid the insane traffic.
One evening I was east bound through the zone when I saw the worst accident ever.
A flat bed hauling coils of steel was in the leftmost west bound lane when three or four cars swooped in front of him forcing the trucker to lock the brakes and steer right hoping to avoid a direct impact.
Unfortunately the front coil of steel broke loose and flew straight ahead.
The four people in the car died instantly. No hope whatever that anyone could have survived. There was blood everywhere.
The steel coil continued to roll over the hood and struck the next car. What damage it did there I didn’t see.
I pulled off at the next exit just in time to empty my stomach.
In Maryland, they have speed cameras in construction zones. People slow right the hell down in them, too, so they won’t be ticketed.
But nooooo, they’re invasive and violate due process or something . . .
I think I will do the limit in construction zones from now on. I have my middle finger ready in case the guy behind me gets impatient.
As a general rule I’m not for speed cameras. Construction zones are the exception though.
Anything that can be done to regulate speed in those zones needs to be considered and tried.
Unfortunately too few people actually see the results of unsafe driving.
The news cameras don’t show the blood and gore they only show a wrecked car and a cop giving a lecture on safe driving.
If the news shows were allowed to show the mangled bodies and blood soaked cars it might make an impression on the public.
Death is so foreign and clean to most people that safety is not a concern.
When drivers blow by me in construction zones I just smile and let them go.
If you are holding up traffic by driving the speed limit you may be saving someone’s life. You never know.
I heartily agree. I typically do 5 above in a construction zone (which I will now not do, but do the speed limit after reading your I-80 account), and people are whizzing by me or riding my ass. Those speed cameras do cause people to slow down, even though no points are added to their licenses for a ticket.
If the news shows were allowed to show the mangled bodies and blood soaked cars it might make an impression on the public.
Perhaps they should. I saw something similar 21 years ago, only it was a van hitting a dog. The dog got up from under the front wheel and limped its way home, screaming like a woman. The driver got out; he was all broken up over it. I will never forget it. I suspect the dog's owner had to put it to sleep afterward.
“Those speed cameras do cause people to slow down, even though no points are added to their licenses for a ticket.”
Most states now have enhanced fines for speeding in construction zones. If that was coupled with speed cameras it might make a good dent in speeding.
“Perhaps they should. I saw something similar 21 years ago, only it was a van hitting a dog. The dog got up from under the front wheel and limped its way home, screaming like a woman. The driver got out; he was all broken up over it. I will never forget it.”
For circumstances beyond my control I had to quit school at 15 so I never took the mandated driving course.
My friends who did told me that one whole class period was devoted to a film that showed all the blood, gore and destroyed bodies involved in auto accidents.
It made a huge impression on everyone.
I don’t think drivers ed classes today could show such a film. Someone might sue them.
I’m glad the I-80 accident made an impression.
Spread it to those you know. It might give someone just the nudge they need to be safer.
I remeber that, I went with my friend to his drivers ed class the year before I took it, so I saw that movie. They did not show it the following year. That would have been in 1973, I think.
“I remeber that, I went with my friend to his drivers ed class the year before I took it, so I saw that movie. They did not show it the following year. That would have been in 1973, I think.”
I know they were still showing it in 1971 when my younger brother took drivers ed but had stopped in 1975 when a cousin took the class.
Every year anyone who saw it talked about it for weeks.
I heard about it so much I almost felt like I had seen it.
I don’t think reminders of their own mortality is going to make much impression on assholes who speed through road construction. If that Mitsubishi moved a tractor trailer loaded with jersey barriers a quarter mile, think for a second about what it would happen to a highway construction worker, not in a vehicle, trying to earn a living......
“I don’t think reminders of their own mortality is going to make much impression on assholes who speed through road construction.”
There is always a small percentage of the population that seems willing to do whatever is required to earn an early funeral.
A larger percentage of the population will take heed if the warnings are gory enough.
the reduced speeds in construction zones are there, primarily, to protect the people who have to work there, and who should not have to be dismembered as a condition of their employment.
People who speed through active work zones who kill themselves are just enforcing Darwin’s law and cleaning out the shallow end of the gene pool.
Yes, construction speed limits are there primarily for the workers.
However there is enough heavy equipment movement, Jersey barriers and lane closure to warrant the slower speeds for traffic to protect everyone.
Unfortunately those who speed in construction zones usually do as much, or more, damage to others as they do to themselves.
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