California Truck Accident Causes

Every day over ninety people in the U.S. are injured or killed in a truck related accident. The injuries that truck collision victims endure are often vicious and can bring lifelong consequences. Sadly, the causes of many truck accidents in California are completely preventable. Reviewing the most common causes below paint a picture as to the near epidemic of truck accidents and our need to improve truck safety laws and regulations in our country and the state of California. Of course if you're ever involved in a California truck accident, it is advised to contact an expert California truck accident attorney.

Driver Fatigue

Driver fatigue is considered the most common cause of truck accidents. Surveys show that 20-40% of all truck crashes are blamed on the sleep-deprived truck driver. With pressure from the trucking companies to deliver loads faster, many drivers skip rest periods, or shorten them. Others stay up on stimulants such as methamphetamines in order to make deadlines.

Sleep deprivation is a serious issue. It impairs a driver's ability to perform a variety of tasks, including those related to driving and operating trucks. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration requires that drivers and carriers maintain logs, receipts, and other paperwork that track their observance with current Hours of Service regulations. If you have been in a truck accident and suspect driver fatigue as the cause, an experienced California truck accident attorney can help investigate and give you the compensation you deserve.

Defective Products and Poor Maintenance

To increase profits, trucking companies oftentimes miss scheduled maintenance dates and do not replace faulty parts on the trucks they provide their employees. In these instances when an accident is involved, multiple parties are usually liable and an experienced truck product defect attorney is needed to investigate the source of the faulty truck parts or lack of maintenance.

Unsecured Loads or Overly Heavy Loads

Falling debris or otherwise unsecured or overloaded trucks are a great hazard on our roads. The trucking companies may place too high of demands on truckers to carry loads that are unsafe, or the driver may have improperly secured the load or is not following protocol. In either case, several parties may be at fault.

DUI/ Drug Use

A common drug of choice for truck drivers is crystal meth, which is cheap and allows them stay awake and drive long hours without rest. Unfortunately, this drug can cause hallucinations and delusions, and coming down from it can also impair judgment and motor abilities. Whether the driver is drunk, on stimulants, or otherwise impaired, a truck DUI attorney is often essential for counsel and expertise in your DUI truck accident case.

Improper Reflectors

The law in California states that trucks need proper reflectors of a certain thickness and quantity, which are clean and easy to see, in order to prevent accidents. These may either be missing, dirty, or damaged and may cause low visibility and be blamed as the primary cause of a truck accident.

Improper Training

Some truck drivers are indecently trained for the operation of a big rig. The proper license, experience, and skill set is necessary for the safe maneuvering of a large commercial truck, and to save money, companies often hire poor drivers, some with bad driving records, so they can pay them less and save money on their end.

Unrealistic Deadlines and Schedules

Trucking companies often place overly tight schedules on their drivers in order to save money and increase profits. For fear of losing their jobs, truckers often are forced to miss sleep, feel the need to use stimulants, or simply drive recklessly and speed in order to make their bosses happy and meet the schedules which cannot be naturally met in a legal and safe manner.

These various causes of truck accidents are absolutely preventable in most cases and can lead to extreme truck accidents such as jackknifes, rear-end, head-on, and under-ride collisions which usually end up in multi-car pileups across several lanes of a freeway with often fatal or severe injuries. More than 450,000 large trucks are involved in crashes each year. More than 1,000,000 people are involved in these crashes. Furthermore, trucking accidents are complicated because both the state and federal governments regulate commercial trucking.

Our attorneys are experienced California truck accident lawyers who have represented over 6,000 happy clients for over thirty years.

Often many questions arise when involved in a truck accident. Our team of experts can help you find out:

How did the accident occur?
Who is at fault in the accident and how can you best receive compensation?
How to cope with job loss or interruption?
How to find witnesses?
Can your own automobile policy be used to help you?
And much more with our free consultation.

All motorists should be conscious of the dangers associated with sharing our roads with large trucks. We are devoted to protecting the rights of the clients we represent.

If you or someone close to you have been injured in a California truck accident, please contact our experienced truck accident lawyers today.

Call us now for a free consultation at: 1-877-854-0004.

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