South Florida Injury Attorney Blog

A seven-month-old baby was killed when the tire on his father’s truck suddenly came apart, the St. Petersburg Times reported June 21. The baby’s father, Michelin Jones of Tampa, was driving on Interstate 4 when the tread on the right rear tire of his truck separated, the newspaper said. Jones lost control of the truck, which hit the median and rolled over three times before landing upright. The crash threw seven-month-old Indria Jones from the truck, killing him. The elder Jones was unharmed and another boy, six-year-old Drelin Pittman, suffered minor injuries. The Times said all three were wearing seatbelts -- which we hope means the children were in child safety seats.

An accident caused by tire tread separation is attention-grabbing for a Hialeah product liability lawyer like me, because it has happened numerous times before. If you drove a Ford vehicle earlier in this decade, you may remember the 2000 recall of 3.85 million Bridgestone/Firestone tires because they had a serious and potentially accident-causing defect. That defect was an unreasonable likelihood of tire tread separation, which caused drivers to lose control of their vehicles, especially at high speeds. Authorities believe the defective tires caused at least 120 deaths and several thousand serious injuries, including permanent spinal and brain damage.

There’s no evidence in the article that another widespread tire tread separation problem is about to hit the United States, of course. But if a defective tire turns out to be responsible for this accident, the family would have a strong potential South Florida defective product lawsuit. Tire manufacturers and all other manufacturers who do business in Florida are legally obligated to make sure they don’t sell dangerous products. When they fail in that duty, they are legally liable to people who are injured as a result. In a lawsuit, Floridians who are seriously hurt or lose a family member to a defective product can claim compensation for their injuries, physical pain, emotional suffering and all of the medical bills and lost income that resulted.