What Element of Negligence Causes Most Truck Accidents?

Most truck accidents result from some person’s failure to carry out his or her assigned duty.

Driver’s duties

Truck drivers are supposed to adhere to the rules of the road. That means obeying the speed limit and avoiding distractions. Those truck drivers that are independent contractors are supposed to arrange for the truck’s inspection, before that large vehicle gets loaded with items, and starts traveling on the road.

It is each driver’s duty to keep a log of the amount of time that he or she spends sitting behind the steering wheel. The failure to carry out that duty might not cause an accident, but it could slow a determination of what had caused that unfortunate incident, as per personal injury lawyer in Chatham.

If the truck’s brakes should fail, then the driver is supposed to pull over at one of the designated spots on the highway. Yet, at night a driver might not notice such a spot, if it had not been well lighted. In that case, a determination for the cause of an accident ought to put some of the blame on the institution that was responsible for the lights at that designated pullover spot.

Duties of trucking company

The trucking company is supposed to train the drivers.

If the trucking company were to add to the drivers’ duties that of loading their truck, then it ought to offer guidance, with respect to the right way for loading a truck’s trailer.

The trucking company should also make sure that each truck’s GPS system is in working order, so that drivers can more easily locate their intended destination.

Duties of company that inspects trucks and fixes broken parts

That company must pay close attention to the condition of each truck’s tires and brakes.

That company should alert the truck’s owner to any identified problems.

Duty of each business that oversees the loading operations

That business should know the state’s regulations, regarding the maximum load size for any truck’s trailer.

That business should do an adequate job of training the loaders, so that items do not shift around in the trailer, while the truck is moving down the road.

How could any injured victim locate the person or company that has committed a breach of recognized duty?

That injured victim would need to retain the services of a personal injury attorney. An attorney’s training should have equipped him or her for identification of the responsible party, once a client has been injured in an accident. In addition, an attorney’s training should prepare him or her for the chance that the allegedly responsible party might claim that the victim/client was partly to blame for one of more of the factors that had caused the injury-linked accident.