Todd Tracy looks past the moment of impact and studies what came after. In crash after crash. Tracy examines failures most people never consider: roofs that collapse, seatbacks that give way, airbags that do not deploy. His work shifts the legal focus from who caused a collision to what caused the injuries or death. Using physics, engineering, and independent crash testing, he reconstructs how safety systems failed when they were supposed to protect. The consequence is stark. Crashes that should have been survivable become fatal, leaving families with permanent loss and unanswered questions—and a narrow window to preserve the evidence before it disappears.
Should They Have Walked Away?
Car crashes happen in a blink. Accident investigatiors typically blame the driver who caused the crash.
Regardless of who caused the crash, the vehicle itself may be responsible for deaths or life-changing injuries.
For example, a roof collapsed when it should have held. A door flew open and threw occupants out of the the vehicle. A seatback failed, turning the rear seat into a killing zone for children. A dealer repair shop did not reconnect sensors causing the airbag to fail in a deadly crash.
When Safety Systems Fail, Survivable Becomes Fatal
In Todd Tracy’s world, those failures are not footnotes. They are the story because they often explain why a crash that should have been survivable becomes fatal or life-altering.
The Question That Changes Everything
Most injury cases are built around a simple question: who caused the collision? Todd Tracy’s cases are built around a different one: what caused the injuries or death. Tracy focus on the obvious but overlooked question:
Should They Have Walked Away?
That distinction, injury causation over collision blame, has been central to his practice for decades and was captured in a profile by The Dallas Morning News, which quoted Tracy saying he doesn’t care who was at fault; his focus is on what caused “the injuries or death.”
A Fighter in the Heavyweight Ring
The Dallas Morning News described Tracy as a “fighter”. Watch this video to understand why Tracy climbs into the ring for heavyweight bouts against the richest and most powerful vehicle manufacturers in the world.
Watch How Todd Tracy Fights For You
The Science First Advantage
Todd Tracy is a lawyer armed with a physics degree and a deep understanding of vehicle safety designs. For more than three decades and approximately 3,000 cases, his law practice has focused on the specialized field of Vehicle Crashworthiness.
What Vehicle Crashworthiness Means
It is the science of preventing or minimizing serious injuries and death following an accident through the use of the vehicle’s safety systems.
Juries Listen When Todd Talks
Tracy’s expertise in Vehicle Crashworthiness has resulted in substantial financial recoveries for his clients from car companies and dealers.
Why These Cases Matter to Families
The victims of defective vehicle safety systems often face large medical bills, long-term medical life care expenses, loss of earnings, and many will never be able to resume their normal lives. In the case of fatal accidents, family members are entitled to seek financial damages for the loss of their loved ones.
How Contingency Fees Work
Todd Tracy representsp clients on a contingency fee basis. A contingency fee agreement is a contract in which a personal injury lawyer is paid only if the lawyer obtains money for the client, usually through a settlement or a court judgment.
Instead of charging an hourly fee up front, the lawyer’s fee is a percentage of the recovery. If there is no recovery, the lawyer does not collect an attorney’s fee.
Why Big Cases Need a Specialized Firm
The crash victims who seek Todd’s help do not have the financial resources to take on the world’s biggest companies.
The typical car accident attorneys that you see on television commercials usually do not possess Todd’s knowledge and experience in Vehicle Crashworthiness cases.
In fact, many of those same TV car wreck attorneys refer their vehicle safety defect cases involving death or serious injuries to the Tracy Law Firm
Vehicle Crashworthiness in Plain English
It’s a hard fact that wrecks will happen. The goal is to keep a human body alive and intact when thousands of pounds of steel and glass suddenly lose speed. The federal safety world defines crashworthiness in plain terms: occupant protection meant to reduce fatal and serious injuries, and it drives how vehicles are tested and improved.
The Pillars of Protection
For example, vehicle safety systems should be designed to slow you down more gently. Your body gets hurt when it stops too fast. Crashworthy vehicles are designed to “give” in controlled ways. The front and rear of the vehicle crumple to absorb energy, so the passenger space does not take the full hit. Engineers sometimes call this managing the “crash pulse,” which is just a fancy way of saying: spread the stop over a longer time.
The passenger area is supposed to stay strong, like a cage. When that space collapses, when a roof crushes inward, or the dashboard and door frame push into the passenger compartment, the risk of injury rises fast. This is why regulators and researchers focus on “survival space,” and why roof strength rules exist for rollovers.
Then come the restraints: seat belts, airbags, head restraints, and seats that stay locked in place. Federal rules don’t just say “add a seat belt.” They specify crashworthiness in measurable terms, such as forces and accelerations recorded on crash-test dummies, because numbers let engineers compare designs and improve them.
Inside the Tracy Crash Lab
On any given day, you will find Tracy and a team of veteran automotive engineering experts and scientists examining every nook and cranny of mangled vehicles inside his crash lab.
It is here that Tracy proves how his clients suffered fatal or life-changing injuries.
Independent Testing = Independent Proof
Todd Tracy also goes the extra mile by conducting independent crash tests that often exceed tests done by manufacturers.
Controlled collisions under scientific procedures use vehicles identical to those involved in crashes. Tracy has discovered that millions of vehicles with defective seat backs that collapse in rear-end collisions are on the highways.
A Known Hazard: Seatback Failures
Tracy has uncovered seatback failure by conducting extensive crash tests. In the photo above you can see how crash test dummiers are hurled into the back seat.
These faulty seatbacks are ticking time bombs that crush children sitting in the rear seat behind the driver and front passenger. Defective seatback brackets also inflict debilitating spinal cord injuries on the driver and front seat passenger.
The Titanic Lesson
The lesson of the Titanic is not “disaster happens.” It is “systems fail in layers.” The ship was built with watertight compartments, but the design assumed a certain kind of damage. When too many compartments were breached, water moved from one to the next, overwhelming the safety system.
Afterward, maritime safety changed, calling for greater lifeboat capacity, improved drills, stronger bulkheads, and stricter international rules.
Safety Is Layers, Not Luck
Vehicle safety does not rely on one miracle feature. It relies on layers.
In a car, the layers are crumple zones, a strong passenger compartment, seat belts, airbags, seats that don’t collapse, doors that stay shut, and fuel systems that resist fire. One failure can turn a survivable crash into a lethal one.
Don’t Trust The PR
The Titanic was famously treated as “unsinkable” in the public imagination. In vehicle safety, the modern version is blind faith in a rating, a brand, or a promise.
But a manufacturer’s five-star label, a brochure, or a slick television ad does not guarantee survival across all crash types. Unless they religiously practice Vehicle Crashworthiness.
What To Do After A Serious Crash
The driver of the above vehicle suffered a spinal cord injury when they were hit in the rear near downtown Dallas. The family contacted Todd Tracy to examine the vehicle ion his crash lab. Tracy uncovered a vehicle safety defect that caused the driver’s injuries.
If a crash caused death or life-changing injuries, it may not match what you were told was a “routine wreck,” caused by the other driver.
It is critical to your case to preserve the evidence.
- Keep control of the wrecked vehicle. Secure it. Do not remove parts or allow them to be altered.
- Do not settle the property-damage claim in a way that allows the insurer to take the vehicle to salvage before it can be inspected. (If the vehicle has been moved to salvage, we can try to recover it at no cost to you.)
- Do not give recorded statements until you have spoken with your attorney.
- If criminal charges are filed against another driver, be cautious about victim-impact statements that could unintentionally complicate a separate product-liability case.
Act Before The Evidence Disappears
The Tracy Law Firm, based in Dallas, invites families to contact Todd Tracy for a free review of a deadly or life-altering vehicle crash
TAKEAWAY Q&As
- What is meant by a “second crash”?
It refers to failures of vehicle safety systems after the initial collision, such as collapsed roofs, failing seatbacks, or non-deploying airbags. - How does Todd Tracy approach crash cases differently?
Instead of focusing on who caused the crash, he concentrates on what caused the injuries or death, asking whether the occupants should have survived. - What is vehicle crashworthiness?
It is the science of designing vehicles to prevent or reduce serious injury or death in crashes through layered safety systems. - Why are independent crash tests important in these cases?
They allow controlled testing of vehicles identical to those in real crashes, often revealing safety defects not exposed by manufacturer testing. - What critical steps should families take after a serious crash?
They should preserve the vehicle, avoid premature settlements, limit recorded statements, and act quickly before evidence is lost.