David Broccolo Killed in Dump Truck Accident in Austin, TX

According to KXAN, a man was killed in an accident with a dump truck in west Austin, Texas. The incident occurred around 3:10 p.m. Friday, January 6 when Texas Department of Public Safety officials believe 22-year-old David Broccolo lost control of his vehicle and struck an asphalt dump truck traveling the opposite direction. Broccolo was pronounced dead at the scene.

Site of the Accident


View Larger Map

Commentary
My condolences go out to the family of the victim in this accident. Commercial vehicle accidents are very difficult to investigate, as their causes can range from driver error, by either party, to mechanical failures. Because of these unknown variables, it is almost always advisable to conduct a third party investigation in collaboration with the police reports. When determining if an accident will produce civil remedies, a liability determination must be made. Regardless of how the accident is portrayed by news feeds, liability is rarely an all-or-nothing entity. In other words, the actions of both parties, prior and during the accident, are paired against each other. Certainly if the victim lost control of their vehicle and struck another truck, they could incur some fault, but what if the driver of the dump truck failed to use any evasive or defensive actions? This could shift some fault onto another party. Conversely, perhaps neither party's actions were relevant to the accident and its genesis was a mechanical failure. Obviously this is speculation, but my aim is not to figure out what happened within a blog post. Rather, it is to show that many variables are relevant to an accident, variables that are typically only extolled through the employ of a separate investigation.

Austin Commercial Vehicle Accident Attorney Michael Grossman