Accidents involving large trucks and or “big rigs” can be some of the most serious and deadly in the United States. These mammoth vehicles weigh up to 80,000 pounds (as opposed to the 5,000 pound weight of the average passenger vehicle). It is not surprising that a larger vehicle impacting a smaller vehicle is likely to result in catastrophic damages.

 

Accidents involving large trucks are not simply personal injury cases involving a larger vehicle. Specific laws and regulations govern the safety of large trucks and commercial vehicles. Cases involving big rigs and large trucks require a thorough understanding of commercial vehicle regulations on both the federal and state level.

 

All vehicles engaged in interstate commerce are governed by The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (Title 49, Parts 350-399). To view the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, click on the following link: http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/rules-regulations/administration/fmcsr/fmcsrguide.asp?section_type=A

Among the many regulations that federal law imposes on drivers and their employers is a requirement that drivers and their employers keep logbooks, fuel receipts, other trip documentation and vehicle maintenance records for a minimum period of time. Vehicle maintenance records must be kept for one year, whereas other records must be kept for six months. In addition, all relevant documents must be preserved when their truck is involved in an accident. Unscrupulous trucking companies have been known to alter or forge these records following an accident, especially with respect to the number of hours driven.

Federal regulations generally require interstate truckers to record the amount of time spent resting and driving. This “logbook” may be either written or digital. Federal rules limit interstate truckers to 11 hours of driving over a 14-hour period and require them to rest for 10 consecutive hours before returning to the road. These limitations can be modified by different factors. These modifications include adverse driving conditions, time spent in a sleeper berth, and type of cargo the truck is carrying. To view the Federal Regulations governing the hours of service of truck drivers, click on the following link: http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/rules-regulations/administration/fmcsr/fmcsrguidedetails.asp?rule_toc=764§ion_toc=764

Federal regulations also impose certain requirements on employers. One such requirement provides that employers must do a background check on potential drivers before hiring. This check must include a verification of the driver's previous three years of experience. If an inexperienced driver is hired and the trucking company fails to verify his experience, the company may leave be at risk of a lawsuit based on “negligent hiring.” Many trucking companies balk at the requirement, saying it is too difficult for them to verify previous experience because so many trucking companies go out of business each year (40,000 per year, by one estimate). Many have admitted they have hired drivers without completing the prior employment verification.

Common Factors Contributing to Accidents
Motor vehicle crashes involving large trucks and other commercial vehicles are complex events. Some factors that influence a crash can happen anytime from hours to months before the crash. These factors include driver experience, training, vehicle design, vehicle maintenance, and weather conditions. Other factors take place immediately before a crash. These factors include driver decisions, tire blowouts, or unexpected road hazards. The following factors are frequently cited as contributing to accidents involving large trucks:

Statistics
In 2006, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) released a study called the Large Truck Crash Causation Study (LTCCS). The LTCCS reported that over 4,700 large trucks were involved in fatal crashes, over 135,000 were involved in non-fatal crashes, and 57,213 were involved in injury crashes nationwide. In California during the same year, 384 large trucks were involved in fatal crashes, 12,438 were involved in nonfatal crashes, and 4,043 were involved in injury crashes. 

 

The LTCCS is based on a three-year data collection project conducted by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) of the United States Department of Transportation (DOT). Its purpose was to determine the critical events and associated factors that contribute to serious large truck crashes. The agencies within DOT and others would be able to implement policies and procedures to reduce the severity and occurrence of these crashes. For purposes of the study, "truck" is defined as “a vehicle designed, used, or maintained primarily for carrying property, with a gross vehicle weight rating or gross combination weight rating of more than 10,000 lbs.” During the three-year study period of the project, FMCSA estimated that there were approximately 141,000 large trucks involved in fatal, incapacitating, and non-incapacitating injury crashes.

The LTCCS assigned critical events to the crashes it studied. For the study, a critical event is “the action or event that put the vehicle or vehicles on a course that made the collision unavoidable.” Several critical events were assigned to large trucks in this study. The following are the three main critical events: 

The study also assigned a “critical reason” to each crash. The critical reason is the reason why a critical event happened. The following list of critical reasons of a crash are grouped into three categories: driver mistakes, driver's condition prior to crash, condition of vehicle.

Driver Mistakes

Driver's Condition Before Crash

 Condition Of The Vehicle Before Crash

If you or a loved one have been involved in an accident involving a large truck: