Las Vegas receives an average of about 4.5 inches of rain per year. Because of this dearth of precipitation, residents of the city have a reputation of not being able to drive well when it does rain. Unfortunately, an incident this week won’t be disabusing anyone of that notion anytime soon.

Early yesterday morning between 2am and 3am, a multi-vehicle accident occurred on U.S. 95 between Las Vegas Boulevard and Eastern Avenue. The crash was precipitated by a semi-trailer traveling southbound, and four other 18-wheelers were involved – one of which was on the northbound side that began leaking fuel. Four passenger cars also got caught up in the pileup. When the dust cleared, three people had to be rushed to the hospital, with at least one of them in serious condition. Numerous other minor injuries were also reported.

Though the exact circumstances surrounding the truck accident are not yet known, wet roads are believed to have played an important role. If authorities determine that one truck did wind up causing the entire chain-reaction crash, then that driver may be held responsible for all of the ensuing auto damage and injuries. That means that the truck driver (along with his or her company, which is responsible for the actions of all of its drivers) may be named as the defendant in personal injury lawsuits filed by the accident victims. This may include those people who only suffered so-called “minor” injuries – because after all, just because the injuries were not life threatening doesn’t mean that they weren’t expensive to treat.