As I posted before, due to the Marcellus Shale exploration and drilling in the area, I strongly believe that we are going to see a huge increase in very dangerous big truck accidents in the Northern Tier of Pennsylvania and Southern Tier of New York.  A story on WETM-TV today (pasted below), shows that my prediction was spot-on.

Frankly, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to make this prediction.  Let’s face it, with tons more big trucks– water trucks, pickup trucks, well-drilling trucks–  driven by drivers from distant states (have you ever seen so many Oklahoma and Texas license plates in Wellsboro before?) who are working 12-14 hours a day and who are hurrying to and from their work, collisions are bound to happen.

But the sad and tragic part is that these collisions are going to be bad.  REALLY bad!  Because when BIG truck meets small car, horrible injuries and death often result.

Now, you are probably saying to yourself”  ”OK Jim Reed, as a NY and PA truck accident lawyer, all these truck accidents are good for your business so your sure-as-hell are loving it, aren’t you?”.  And I can honestly tell you that although my business means the world to me because I already have two kids in college (and a third hopefully going soon!) so my business pays my bills, I HATE to see people’s lives destroyed in these accidents.

TRUCK ACCIDENTS DESTROY REAL LIVES

When you sit with a husband who lost his wife and the mother of his three young kids because a drunken idiot well-driller crushed her car to smithereens, you forget about your business and you feel the pain that such a loss inflicts…..  That pain is something that never goes away no matter how much money I recover for the widower who now has to face life without the love and support of his true love.  Sad stuff.

But what I CAN do is help that widower cope with the loss– I can make sure all the bills get paid, I can make sure that he can afford to hire help to help out with the kids, I can make sure he has both financial and emotional support during what is probably the toughest loss he has ever endured.  And I can feel good about that…..

Thanks for reading and make sure to hug your loved ones EVERY day.

WETM-TV STORY

Blossburg Officials Looking Into Alcohol Playing Role In Crash

Blossburg, P.A. – A natural gas worker lost control of his truck Monday morning in Tioga County, Pennsylvanialeaving a path of destruction behind.

Around 1:30 Monday morning, the driver of a Mercer Well Service truck lost control on Main Street in Blossburg. Blossburg Police stated that the truck first hit the Robindale Energy Services sign. Then, the truck hit a telephone poll causing it to snap. From there, the truck destroyed bushes and shrubs in front of the Southern Tioga Administration Building and hit their sign. The truck then side-swiped the Blossburg borough’s flag poll. It finally came to rest hitting a tree. School Superintendent Joseph Kalata told WETM 18 News that the incident could have been much worse.

“Shrubbery and so forth you can look at the devastation there, it’s shocking to see a rock in front of your building, but we can replace the shrubs and luckily it didn’t cause any further damage, it didn’t hit the building, it didn’t hit the porch or anything like that,”  said Kalata.

Blossburg Police told WETM 18 News that the truck was traveling at high speeds with five people inside. Amazingly, no one was hurt. Police stated that they are investigating whether alcohol played a role. Businesses along Main Street that WETM 18 News spoke with stated that they are trying their best to go about their day.

“I’ve seen a lot of action across the street with a poll being snapped off and the road being blocked off. I assumed I was going to be in the dark, but found out it was just a telephone line that has been down all day,” said SuperStars store owner Scott Mahr.

“It’s very fortunate that it didn’t affect any of our buildings and didn’t affect any more damage than it already did,” said ChadWick’s store owner Chad Henry.

The driver’s name has not been released. Police stated that Mercer Well Service is paying for all of the damages and have been very corporative during the entire process. Mercer officials did not return our call for comment.