An Illinois amateur runner sued Uber in state court in New Jersey on Friday, claiming that a negligent driver caused a significant traffic accident last year. The accident resulted in Katherine Vesce being knocked unconscious and sustaining a "serious knee injury." Vesce was en route to the New York City marathon, but she was hurt so badly that she likely will be unable to run any marathons in the future.

The Illinois woman is now suing for negligence, fraud, and other allegations, and she's the latest person in a series of similar lawsuits filed against Uber in recent years. Many of the cases make related claims that Uber’s safety and training procedures are woefully inadequate and can result in this type of unsafe behavior by drivers.

In January 2017, Matthew Luber, one of Vesce’s attorneys, also sued Uber on behalf of a man who said he was beaten up by his driver on a wintery evening in Philadelphia.

This latest lawsuit comes one day after former CEO Travis Kalanick was sued by Benchmark Capital Partners over a dispute concerning the company's board of directors. Uber is also facing what could prove to be a very costly lawsuit filed by Waymo, Alphabet's self-driving car subsidiary, alleging theft of trade secrets.

High-speed chaos

In Vesce’s case, she had traveled from her home outside of Chicago to New York to run in the annual New York City Marathon. On the morning of the race, November 6, 2016, she hailed an Uber from her Manhattan hotel, which was supposed to take her to the start in Staten Island.

However, according to Vesce’s account, she believed that there was something "‘off’ with the Uber Driver," whom she identified as Souleymane Niango.

As her lawyers wrote in the civil complaint:

To begin, Plaintiff realized that the Uber Driver was not a skilled driver. The Uber Driver nearly caused several accidents within the first few minutes of the commute and drove erratically to make turns and pass other vehicles. But worse, the Uber Driver had difficulty communicating with Plaintiff in English and, based on her interactions with the Uber Driver, it appeared that he was unable to read or understand the various highway signs they passed along the way.

As the ride progressed from Manhattan into the Garden State, Vesce began to point out to the driver that he should take an upcoming exit that was just 1.5 miles away. However, at that point, Niango "suddenly and inexplicably veered through four lanes of traffic at nearly 70 miles per hour."

As the lawsuit described it, Niango "swerved all the way from the left lane to the right lane, so much so that the vehicle was driving horizontally to the correct flow of traffic. The Uber driver's car then slammed, in a T-bone fashion, into Defendant Quintana’s car at full-speed. Both cars careened off the highway and into a fence on the side of the road." (Note, Andrew Quintana is the driver of the second car, and he's also named as a defendant in the lawsuit.)

As a result, Vesce was seriously injured and did not make it to the New York City Marathon, "and she likely will never run a marathon in the future."

Uber did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment overnight. We will update this post if we hear back.

UPDATE 2:00pm ET: Susan Hendrick, an Uber spokeswoman, e-mailed Ars a corporate statement: "The series of events alleged is very unfortunate. While we cannot comment on pending litigation, our thoughts are with Katherine."

Hendrick, who declined to respond to most of Ars' questions about the incident and lawsuit, did say that Niango's "access to the driver app was removed after this incident."