Brevard County, FL -- March 21, 2023, a Palm Bay man was killed following an accident where a tractor-trailer crashed with two cars on I-95.

Investigators said that the incident happened at around 8:30 a.m. along I-95 in the area of Wickham Road.

Officials said that a semi-trailer going northbound along the interstate when it somehow crashed into the back of a Hyundai Accent. This caused a chain reaction involving a Hyundai Elantra.

Due to the collision, a 70-year-old Palm Bay man in one of the two cars sustained fatal injuries. It's unclear if others were injured. Police have not given additional details about the accident.

Commentary by Attorney Michael Grossman

I'm curious to know if authorities are going to release more information about what went wrong here or if witnesses might shed some light on things. It's simple enough to say a commercial truck "failed to maintain control," as I saw in some news reports, but finding out why that happened is crucial. For example, there's a big difference between a truck driver failing to maintain control over a truck while they're having a medical emergency and a driver failing to maintain control of their vehicle because they were watching videos on their phone.

That's one of the more common mistakes I see from people who read about crashes like this. They tend to jump to conclusions without considering what they actually know about a crash—which, if they're like me and just reading about this in the news, isn't a whole lot. Just to be clear, in my experience, details like those in reports about this crash usually mean that the truck driver did something wrong. Whether that's something obvious like speeding or distracted driving or something more complex like poor training or neglected maintenance remains to be seen.

But ensuring there are investigations into less common possibilities can help to ensure two things: that nothing unusual slips through the cracks, and that the victims and families have clear evidence to prove their side of the story. As I mentioned above, it could be there was something unforeseeable like a medical event here. But if there were mistakes made, clearly ruling out something like a medical episode leaves less room for blame-shifting when it comes time for someone to take responsibility for their actions.

So while investigations no doubt continue here, I hope the public can turn their efforts more toward thinking of the victim's loved ones rather than jumping to conclusions, even if those conclusions are likely to be true. After all, one of the best things that can be done for victims and families in these situations is simply letting the evidence speak for itself.

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