More than 40,000 people are killed each year in car, truck, bus and motorcycle accidents in the United States. Nearly three million suffer injuries.

Auto accidents account for among the most serious injuries, including brain damage and spinal cord injury. For instance, 45 percent of all spinal cord injuries in the United States or roughly 5,000 annually are the result of car and truck accidents.

If you or someone you know was killed or seriously injured in a truck or car accident, you may want to contact an auto accident attorney for a free evaluation of your case.

While many auto accidents occur because of human error, many also can be caused or worsened by defective products or inadequate safety mechanisms.

Among these problems are vehicles that are prone to rollovers, especially increasingly popular sport utility vehicles, or SUVs. Rollover accidents are responsible for an estimated 24,000 injuries and 10,000 deaths annually in the United States.

A number of the vehicles have also been found to have roofs that cannot withstand rollover accidents, with drivers and passengers injured and killed. Federal officials, seeking to reduce the number of so-called roof crush accidents, have proposed toughening the current 30-year-old standard to mandate stronger auto roofs.

Airbags can cause severe injuries in auto accidents. Sometimes the devices deploy when they should not, or open with too much force or too slowly. In some cases airbags fail to deploy at all to protect drivers and passengers.

Other devices have also caused injury and death, such as lap belts found in older vehicles and defective parking brakes. (See White v. Ford) (See Toyota recall)

In some cases it is the type of vehicle itself that can be problematic. For instance, motorcycles and scooters have increased in popularity in recent years and traffic accidents involving the two wheelers has risen with sales. The number of motorcycle riders killed on U.S roadways reached 5,154 in 2009, an all-time high.

Tractor trailers, large trucks and buses are involved in accidents that account for roughly 5,000 fatalities each year in the United States. Fifteen-passenger vans often used by daycare centers, business commuters, sports teams, senior citizen groups and others are also considered dangerous because they are prone to rollovers.

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