Two big rigs, car crash on Interstate 5, south of Portland

In Portland, we know how fast big rigs roll down Interstate 5. Anyone who has driven on that highway knows 18-wheelers are large, moving fast and slow to stop.

Unfortunately, two of those 18-wheelers were involved in a truck accident last night with a passenger car, about six miles south of Wilsonville, law enforcement agencies reported.

As most with a familiarity of how commercial-truck-on-passenger-car crashes tend to go, it will be unsurprising to learn that the occupant of the passenger car perished in the collision.

At this point, area news media has not provided great detail of the crash in the southbound lanes of I-5, but we do know that the car was pinned beneath of the tractor-trailers and that a male inside the vehicle was killed.

The trucker in that big rig was transported to a nearby medical facility, but his condition was not released to media.

Oregon State Police said the accident was around five yesterday evening in Marion County.

While we don’t know the details of this fatal crash, we do know that approximately 85 percent of all fatalities in accidents caused by 18-wheelers are suffered by those in passenger vehicles rather than in the commercial trucks.

About three-quarters of all injuries are sustained by occupants of the smaller vehicles, the U.S. Department of Transportation has reported.

In so many cases, those accidents involve vehicles at high speeds on interstate highways, which often means severe injuries (many times resulting in permanent disabilities), enormous medical bills and long periods of painful recuperation and physical rehabilitation.

Unsurprisingly, those injuries can mean the person will miss extended periods of work, or even lose their ability to continue their career or hold onto their job.

Those kinds of injury experiences can be not only physically damaging, but also emotionally devastating.

Those harmed by a negligent truck driver should contact a personal injury attorney with a record of success in obtaining full and fair compensation from the trucking company and its employee.