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The Difference Between Rollover Accidents and Other Automobile Accidents
Normally, there are significantly more potentially responsible parties concerning a rollover accident than there are in the typical car wreck. When defective tires are the cause of the rollover, the tire manufacturer could be partly to blame. More about McAllen Car Accident Lawyers here
There is also the chance, however, that the tire or tires failed because of several combined factors. Some of these factors include:
Inadequate mounting or installation of the tires, either at the time the car was purchased or during maintenance by a mechanic or other automobile service technician.
The tires might have been in-adequately maintained.
The tire that was mounted to the car may not have been appropriate for the car’s specifications. If this proves to be the case, the car’s manufacturer, or the dealer or individual who sold you the car, could bear a portion or the entirety of the liability.
There are many other factors that could have played a role in causing the rollover accident. All potential factors must be considered, and then the appropriate degree of liability has to be assigned to each responsible party. In order for this to be possible, a very thorough investigation of every single factor that might have contributed to the failure of the defective tire has to be examined in detail.
In the early 2000s, there was a high-profile investigation involving a rash of Ford Explorer rollovers that were blamed on Firestone tires. The media interest, in this case, was intense, and many outlets pointed an accusatory finger at Firestone. However, the ensuing investigation found that no one reason for the rollovers could be determined. Rather, there were several different liable parties. First, the investigation determined that the Ford Motor Company had done an inadequate job of establishing tire specifications for Explorers, resulting in the mounting of mismatched tires on the vehicles. After the vehicles were brought to market, several other factors combined led to the rollovers, such as improper maintenance and inaccurate tire inflation specifications. This story is an example of how several entities responsible for the design, selection, manufacture, installation, or maintenance of tires can share blame and liability for a rollover accident that leads to an injury. Thorough investigations, however, can result in the vehicle manufacturer also being held liable. The following is a list of a few of the causes of the Explorer/Firestone rollovers that were applied to Ford and can be assigned to other vehicle manufacturers in the event of a rollover accident. Some of these include:
Design of the suspension of the vehicle in terms of its rollover resistance when empty or loaded.
A vehicle’s crashworthiness. Some vehicles are better at protecting occupants in the event of a rollover crash than others. There are some instances where a car’s seat belts proved to be malfunctioning at the time of a rollover.
The effectiveness of supplementary safety equipment like airbags can sometimes come into question.
There are a variety of other factors that can often be uncovered once a detailed investigation of a rollover accident is concluded.