Road construction crews often work in the overnight hours in order to limit the amount of disruption their work might cause to traffic flow during the day. This means that they are often more susceptible to being the victims of a car accident. For example, a crew of four men doing construction on U.S. Highway 61 was recently injured in what the Louisiana State Police is calling an alcohol-related crash.
As a pickup truck headed north on the highway, it sideswiped another pickup truck that was part of the construction vehicles. After that impact, the pickup struck a backhoe that was in operation in the left lane of the highway at the time. It then shot forward and leaped over two raised construction curbs and hit the four workers.
The four injured construction workers were all transported to a hospital in the area with what were only described as moderate to severe injuries. No further information regarding their conditions is known at this time. Troopers suspected that the driver who started the accident was impaired. The 23-year-old man was taken to the St. Charles Parish jail and booked on four counts of vehicular negligent injuring in the first degree and careless operation. Reports indicate that he could face additional charges once the investigation is concluded.
The four construction workers will undoubtedly be provided with workers’ compensation benefits, but that does not preclude them from filing third-party personal injury claims against the negligent driver. They could use any evidence Louisiana prosecutors intend to present in the criminal proceedings to establish negligence in the civil actions. If their civil claims are successfully litigated, they could receive damages similar to those in other car accident cases.
Source: wwltv.com, “Four highway construction workers seriously injured by drunk driver”, May 7, 2016