With truck driving being one of the most dangerous jobs in the country – rated the most deadly by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2018 – it comes as no surprise that collisions involving large trucks often result in severe injuries for other drivers on the road, if not death. Both the federal government and Washington State have established many laws and regulations for commercial vehicles to follow in order to ensure safety of both the driver and others, but collisions continue to happen due to a variety of factors.
Read specific Commercial Vehicle Laws and Regulations here, courtesy of the Washington State Patrol: https://www.wsp.wa.gov/driver/commercial-vehicle-driver/commercial-vehicle-laws/
What Causes Trucking Collisions to Happen?
Outside of the obvious fact that commercial trucks are the biggest vehicles on the road, many things can go wrong to cause a collision, including mechanical failures or driver fatigue or distraction. More often than not though, the driver has some kind of responsibility in the occurrence of a collision. Here are several factors that can come into play:
• Lack of proper training and/or supervision
• Fatigue from long hours
• Neglecting maintenance of the vehicle
• Failure to adjust driving during inclement weather
• Human error
• Speeding
If you or someone you know is injured or has died because of a trucking collision, you should immediately seek medical help and get a qualified lawyer. Trucking collisions are often very complex, often involving trucking insurance companies, who bring in their own lawyers to fight their case. Because their rules and regulations are a lot different than passenger vehicles, you should always make sure a good legal team can help you figure out the details of your case.
Our lawyers at GLP Attorneys have decades of experience resolving truck collision injury cases. Give us a call or email us today so we can determine your options and see what we can do to help.