Updated on: 2/15/2019
Customers have plenty of reasons to be angry with Comcast’s shady cancellation policies, difficult to deal with call centers, monopolistic behavior in local markets, and data caps. But multiple drivers in Indiana have a new reason to be furious with the telecom giant: they got into an accident on a dangerous road while swerving to avoid a Comcast repair truck.
The incident, which was captured on film and sent in to Reddit, shows a Comcast truck that was blocking the road right after a blind hill. Although cones were placed in front of the truck, the truck driver did not follow the rule of placing one cone per 10 miles per hour of speed allowed on the road; the cones were also invisible to people coming up the hill, meaning that drivers didn’t even know they needed to apply the brakes until it was too late. By the time these drivers could see the cones, they were traveling too fast to be able to stop safely on the slick road.
The video shows multiple cars swerving to avoid the unexpected truck and ending up in a ditch on the side of the road. When confronted about the unsafe parking and signage, the truck driver claimed, “We didn’t cause anything.”
At the end of the video, the person filming decides to put more cones out to warn drivers. The Comcast employees in the truck mock him as he does so.
Blocking the road can have life-altering consequences
This isn’t the first crash Davis Law Group has seen involving a commercial vehicle blocking the road without sufficient warnings. In 2002, our client Frances was injured when a truck hit her vehicle because the driver could not see around a King County dump truck and loader. Frances suffered a severe traumatic brain injury and a broken back.
County employees at the scene failed to call for help or assist Frances after the crash. Witnesses saw the employees pack up their equipment and leave the scene so quickly that they forgot to collect all of their traffic cones and tools. An investigation revealed that witnesses had reported visibility problems in the area weeks prior to the car collision, and that a local police officer had warned the King County Department of Transportation that they needed to use a flagger to warn motorists if they continued to park in such a dangerous location.
Our client Frances was awarded a total of $5 million after the crash.