You take great care to keep your family safe, even going so far as to drive a vehicle equipped with crucial safety features to safeguard your priceless cargo. To prevent fatal collisions, you secure your children into the proper car seats and obey traffic laws. However, there is little you can do to avert a tragic disaster when an oil tanker approaches you quickly from behind on the highway. The truck driver now has the responsibility to act appropriately and prevent a collision. Unfortunately, far too many of these drivers are drowsy, impaired, inattentive, or simply incompetent, increasing the likelihood of an accident.
Anyone who has shared the road with one knows the size, weight, and typical speed of these vehicles means they need more time and distance to stop or avoid road hazards, have large blind spots, and cause enormous damage to other, smaller vehicles in a collision.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration link to stats are here: notes that a shocking 4,965 people died — 643 of those being Texans — and 146,930 people were injured in large truck crashes. Of course, almost all of the victims were the occupants of other vehicles.
The 80,000 gross vehicle weight rated tractor-trailer almost always wins the battle with the smaller car or pickup truck.
What Should You Know About Truck Accidents?
Truck accidents inflict catastrophic damage, as anyone who has watched an evening news report about one probably knows. Still, seeing images of the aftermath on television and experiencing the violence of a large truck accident firsthand do not compare.
Survivors of these accidents feel lucky to escape them with their lives, because many victims do not. Even those who cheat death in a truck accident often contend with devastating and disabling injuries that can cause a lifetime of pain and distress.
When a trucking firm refuses to pay a settlement, we seek to force that driver or trucking company to make changes to ensure that no other person is hurt. We also defend injured victims of truck accidents. The following contributing factors are frequently to blame for truck crashes, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA):
- Driver Fatigue – Federal law requires drivers to set a cap on the amount of hours they spend behind the wheel at one time. Many drivers, however, disobey these regulations and report incorrect information in the mandatory hours-of-service logs. A lot of lives are at stake when an 18-wheeler is being driven by a tired driver. The employer of the driver is frequently to fault for the truck accident, as they pressured the driver to work more hours than permitted.
- Driver Distraction – Long-haul truckers deal with a variety of difficulties, such as boredom, loneliness, navigational issues, and logging regulations. Unfortunately, they frequently multitask while driving to overcome these obstacles. While engaging in a video chat on a smartphone with a friend can pass the time, doing so diverts the driver’s focus from the road. Setting and using a navigation system, as well as recording hours and distances in a paper or digital logbook, can be distracting and result in accidents. A semi-truck driver must be completely focused on their driving at all times in order to avoid a truck accident.
- Driver Impairment – While alcohol and illegal drugs are a contributing factor in some truck accidents each year, prescription drugs and over-the-counter medications affect drivers more frequently. When under pressure to deliver a load while ill, a trucker may take medications that make him drowsy and disoriented. In an effort to stay awake, other drivers can abuse over-the-counter medications. An experienced attorney will ensure that the required drug tests are conducted in order to determine the cause of impairment after an accident.
- Poorly Maintained Trucks – The two most frequent reasons for truck accidents due to mechanical failure are faulty brakes and bad tires. Trucking businesses put risky vehicles on the highways when drivers skip required rig inspections or when scheduled maintenance is not performed. Both the driver and the trucking business may share responsibility for these accidents.