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Police have discontinued their efforts to find a 10-month-old infant missing after a truck accident in Oakland, California on Saturday night. The unidentified infant was one of seven people, who were riding in a pickup truck that apparently collided with a limousine, and then flipped over, falling into a roadside canal that was filed with rain water. The truck landed upside down in the water, and two adults and two more children in the truck, all unidentified, were injured. The driver of the pickup truck, 19-year-old Petelo Uaisele was killed in the truck accident. He is believed to have been trapped in the truck, and was declared dead at the scene of the accident.

Search teams began an extensive search operation on Sunday morning. Operations included a dive team, and covered a 2-mile stretch along the road where the truck accident occurred. The infant is believed to have been unrestrained, and was apparently ejected from the truck at the time of impact. He is believed to have been washed away in the muddy waters that had been swollen by the recent rain.

Police ended their search operations on Sunday evening after it became dark, and it was obvious that the search was going to be futile. Cops admitted that the odds had been stacked against them right from the beginning. After all, they were looking for the body of a 10-month-old child in dirty, flowing rainwater. Divers said that visibility was low, and that made the task of recovering the body that much more difficult. The other passengers in the car are reported to have non-threatening life injuries, and have been admitted to hospital.

There are plenty of questions being raised after the car accident, especially considering the way the children were transported in the truck. There have been no confirmed comments from the family of the child at this point. It’s obvious that they regret their decision to not have the child in a car seat. Police have said that alcohol and speed don’t seem to be a factor in this truck accident. Investigations are continuing and we will know more as time progresses.

There have also been, curiously enough, no details about the limousine that apparently clipped the truck, sending it over the edge of the road and into the canal. The limousine driver could have the answers car accident lawyers are seeking about this tragic mishap.

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Driving at night is inherently more dangerous. It is harder to see, making reaction time for responding to hazards longer. In addition, people are more tired and sleepy, and with the disappearance of the scenery into the blackness of night, the road can become hypnotic, making even well-rested drivers lethargic.

The problems of night-driving are exacerbated for truckers. Faster delivery means more profits, and more hours on the road means faster delivery. Therefore, trucking companies insist on it as part of their desire for unrealistically fast schedules for delivery of goods. Lobbyists for trucking companies have long fought to increase the hours drivers can spend on the road, and they have succeeded in recent years. With new, less restrictive guidelines on when and how long drivers can be on the road (known as Hours of Service (HoS), set by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA)), drivers can be on the road for as many as 88 hours in 8 days, on a rotating schedule of driving and resting, meaning that they sleep and/or drive at all hours of the day and night. All of these factors make truck accidents far more likely at night.

Dangers of the Road at Night

At night, the main hazard of the road is our inability to see. Humans are diurnal, meaning we are awake during the day and sleep at night, and our eyes are daylight-adapted. No matter how well-lit the roadway is, it is not equivalent to daylight. Point light sources create shadows that can hide dangers or create false perceptions of hazards. In addition, headlights from other vehicles create glare, temporarily blinding drivers. Light reflecting off the roadway or other vehicles can impair a driver’s ability to properly gauge distances and speeds. Finally, dirt, dust, and scratches on windshields or glasses catch and reflect light from all sources. These factors create a minefield of perceived dangers while the real dangers are hidden in the dark. Even an alert driver is sometimes taken by surprise.

Dangers of Driving at Night

But at night most drivers are not alert. Many drivers have been driving all day. According to HoS rules, truckers can drive for as many as 11 hours a day. In the 11th hour of driving at the end of an 88-hour week, a trucker is completely wiped out. No matter how much he tries to keep his focus on the road, it wanders, and the center lines blur from a series of yellow streaks to an amorphous blob. It is 3 or 4 in the morning, and there have been no cars on the road for hours. Whenever the driver thought there was a car, it turned out to be nothing. The pedal goes down to make time. Your car, merging unexpectedly onto the highway is not seen, or is dismissed, and your life is changed forever as the tremendous force of impact hurls the twisted wreckage of your vehicle off the roadway, through the barrier, into a ditch.

If you have been hurt by a fatigued trucker driving at night to maintain the unrealistic schedule imposed by his trucking company, you need to take advantage of your legal recourses to make sure that trucking companies and drivers know that it is unacceptable for them to risk your life for their profit.

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