Car accidents can take many forms. You may see a head-to-head collision, a rear-end collision, or a T-bone crash. Any of these might cause severe injuries or deaths.
Rollover car accidents can devastate drivers and passengers, though, and if you’re in one, you rarely escape unscathed. You might walk away without a scratch if someone rear-ends you without building up much speed beforehand. You can’t usually say the same with rollover accidents.
We’ll discuss rollover accidents further in this article. We’ll also talk about how the law assigns blame when they happen.
What Does a Rollover Accident Entail?
A rollover accident occurs when a car builds up sufficient momentum and flips over. You might see a rollover accident or have one where you flip over once so that you end up with the car’s undercarriage sticking straight up in the air.
A vehicle can also roll over and end up on its side. You may have a rollover accident where multiple rotations occur, but the car ends up sitting on its four wheels again.
What Usually Causes Rollover Accidents?
Rollover accidents usually involve two elements: speed and gravity. Either one alone can cause a rollover situation, but both together make them more likely.
Concerning speed, a much larger vehicle, like an eighteen-wheel truck, might hit a car while traveling at a significant velocity. That collision alone may not cause a rollover.
However, a much larger vehicle striking a car at a high-speed rate can bounce that vehicle off something else, like a concrete traffic divider. If that happens, the car can turn over.
Gravity can play a part if you have a vehicle striking another car when that car’s near a drop-off, like a bridge or an overpass. The car falling from that bridge or overpass can cause a rollover. The vehicle may end up lying below with its tires in the air.
What Other Factors Can Play a Part?
As you can imagine, when these accidents occur, someone probably made a serious traffic mistake. Weather can sometimes factor in.
You might have a stalled car on the highway in the fog or during a downpour, and a truck driver can’t see it. They may plow into that vehicle because the car’s driver couldn’t move it off the road. In that type of situation, a rollover can easily occur.
You might also see a road rage incident sometimes that causes a rollover. Maybe you have a car with a driver who extends a middle finger when passing a trucker. That truck driver might fly into a rage and pursue the vehicle. If they catch them, they might ram the car and cause a rollover.
You’d hope that never happens, but social media videos capture road rage incidents often these days. The proliferation of these videos shows that these incidents can occur at any time around the country.
How Does the Law View Rollover Accidents?
The term “the law” can comprise lawyers, judges, police officers, district attorneys, and so forth. The law examines each rollover case carefully, just as it does any other traffic accident.
Generally, after a rollover accident, the police will investigate. They will arrive on the scene when someone calls 911, usually either someone the crash involves or some driver or pedestrian nearby who had a smartphone handy.
The police will interview everyone involved. They’ll then determine who caused the accident. The police will write up a report. That report often comes in handy later, particularly if one driver sues the other.
The Police Can Arrest Someone at the Scene if Necessary
If the police feel one motorist drove under the influence, they can arrest them at the scene. They will ask each driver whether they ingested alcohol or drugs, and they might administer a breathalyzer. If someone fails a breathalyzer, the police won’t let them walk away. They’ll arrest and book them.
The police regard any car wreck seriously, but rollover collisions will certainly get some extra attention. They usually only happen when egregious traffic errors occur or if there’s a road rage occurrence. Someone who would be so reckless constitutes a public menace, so the cops will want them off the road as soon as possible.
The Court System Will Act Accordingly
The court system will act accordingly following a rollover collision. Like the police, prosecutors, lawyers, and judges all want justice. If they can blame someone, they won’t hesitate.
A district attorney might prosecute a drunk driver who caused a rollover collision. They will certainly prosecute a driver who had a road rage incident causing a crash like this as well.
They will pursue manslaughter charges if someone died. They may even bring reckless endangerment or depraved indifference charges if someone caused a vehicle rollover collision when they lost their temper.
The Law Must Always View These Cases Seriously
Vehicle rollover cases sometimes make national news because they can have multiple fatalities or involve serious property damage. It makes sense that judges, lawyers, police officers, and others who enforce and interpret the law will take them seriously.
Sometimes, the authorities can clean up rollover accidents quickly and easily. They can immediately determine if anyone did something wrong and how they can prosecute them.
In other instances, the situation demands much more investigation. Foul weather, poor road conditions, and other factors might come into play. You may even see rollover accidents sometimes that involve many cars and drivers. These happen on the highway much more than on city streets.
Investigators can take days or weeks untangling these accidents. Sometimes, the police must bring in accident scene reconstruction experts who can tell them what happened. They will spend time at the scene taking photos, examining tire treads on the ground, and interviewing witnesses.
All drivers hope they can avoid car wrecks, but they particularly dread head-to-head collisions and rollover accidents. If you’re in one, and you live through it, consider yourself lucky. Many others can’t say the same.
