Minneapolis Car Accident Lawyer

The Minnesota Department of Transportation will be taking a closer look at the stretch of Interstate 94 near Alexandria after four North Dakota State University college students were killed when their car crossed into oncoming traffic in an area where cable barriers were not installed.

During the past decade, the number of fatal car crashes in Minnesota has been halved — thanks in part to a new approach to accident prevention.

Experts say cable barriers may have made a big difference in the crash that killed four college freshmen, but highway engineers say they were not installed because there is no serious problem with the section of road where the crash occurred.

A total of 26 people have been killed on the 220-mile stretch of I-94 between the Twin Cities and Fargo in the past five years, but the sudden loss of four teenagers has many asking why.

Bernie Arseneau is the MnDOT engineer in charge of trying to improve the safety of more than 12,000 miles of Minnesota roads.

“The fact that four girls were killed is horrific. It’s awful,” he said. “The problem we have is: We cannot predict precisely where that next fatal crash is going to occur.”

MINNEAPOLIS, MN – Argentina’s deadliest train accident in decades was foreseeable and preventable, the nation’s auditor general complained Thursday, saying years of failed safety tests and other problems had given the government more than enough reason to cancel the train operator’s concession.

Others pointed to high-level corruption: years-old allegations still awaiting trial that a former transportation secretary took free vacations and other gifts from executives of the Trains of Buenos Aires company in exchange for favorable treatment.

The TBA blamed government price controls, saying that keeping fares to less than 25 cents a ride made it impossible to finance improvements.

Rail safety experts, meanwhile, said modern trains are built to withstand the kind of hard stop that killed 50 passengers and injured more than 700 Wednesday.

Newer cars resist the accordion-like crumpling that shoved hundreds into a jumbled mass of limbs, metal and blood in the first two cars when the commuter train hit a shock-absorbing barrier at less than 12 mph (20 kph). But these cars were more than four decades old, “Toshiba Classics” that were refurbished after being cast off by other urban systems.

President Cristina Fernandez declared two days of mourning and sent at least four Cabinet ministers out to give news conferences describing the government’s response to the tragedy. None took questions.

One man who might explain why passengers said

MINNEAPOLIS, MN – Divers searching the capsized Costa Concordia cruise ship off a Tuscan island found eight bodies Wednesday on one of the passenger decks, including that of a missing 5-year-old Italian girl, authorities said.

Italy’s national civil protection agency, which is monitoring the operation off a Tuscan island, said three of the bodies were recovered a few hours after being spotted by fire department divers. It said they are those of a woman, a girl and a man. Because of worsening weather, the divers were not able to immediately remove the other five bodies.

The bodies were being transferred to a hospital on the mainland for identification, a process which could take days. Before Wednesday’s development, 15 people were listed as missing, but only one of them was a child, Dayana Arlotti. The 5-year-old girl was on the Mediterranean cruise with her father and his girlfriend. The girlfriend survived. The father was among the missing.

Including the missing — who are presumed dead — and bodies already recovered, the death toll in the accident stands at 32.

MINNEAPOLIS, MN – As multiple metro communities and a North Dakota campus mourn the loss of four young women killed in a crash near Alexandria on Monday, FOX 9 News is learning more about what happened by speaking to one of the drivers who was involved in the wreck but survived.

Imagine traveling just a few car lengths behind a collision unfolding before your eyes. That’s what happened to Kari Christiansen, who was driving with her 71-year-old mother in the passenger seat.

Christiansen said road conditions were slushy at the time, but not terribly slippery. The mother and daughter duo were traveling eastbound on Interstate 94 in a Toyota Corolla, following an SUV and passing a truck, when the students’ vehicle crossed the median and smashed into the SUV.

“All of a sudden, I saw a flash of black, SUV spun — it was less than a second. No time to react — couldn’t avoid hitting the SUV,” Christiansen recalled. “Things were flying everywhere on impact — metal things from the car flying out. It was like being in a tornado (with) debris falling on our car.”