If you were involved in a vehicular accident with a commercial truck, and you suffered serious injuries from the accident, you can hold the trucker, trucking company, and various other parties responsible if you can prove that it was the trucker's fault for the accident and not your fault for the accident. Here are three contributing factors to most commercial trucking accidents that you need to have your attorney explore.
#1 Fatigue
One of the leading causes of truck driving accidents is driver fatigue. That is why there are so many laws that govern and limit the number of hours that you can be on the road as a trucker as well as the hours of sleep and rest that you are required to get in between each driving shift.
On the flip side, many trucking companies pay their drivers based on how many miles that they are able to drive each day. Their pay is not based on how many hours they spend on the road. That means if a driver encounters conditions that slow down their trip, they may push beyond the hours they should.
Your attorney can investigate the driver's logs and records to determine if driver fatigue contributed to the accident.
#2 Distraction
As with all car accidents, truck drivers can also be distracted by all the different elements in their vehicle. They could be temporarily distracted by fixing their radio, checking their GPS, answering their phone, or eating food. Distracted driving can easily lead to an accident.
Make sure that your attorney calls the truck driver in for a deposition and gets a detailed account of every action the driver took leading up to the accident. This will help establish if the driver's distraction contributed to the accident. It can be easy for truck drivers to get distracted with all the long hours they spend on the road.
#3 Experience
Next, make sure that your attorney investigates the experience of the truck driver. It takes a lot of experience to know how to navigate all of the different situations that truckers encounter on the road.
If the trucker that was behind the wheel during your accident doesn't have a lot of hours on the road, your attorney could argue that their lack of experience contributed to the trucker not taking the right actions to avoid an accident.
Make sure that your attorney thoroughly investigates the actions and training of the driver; if they are responsible for the accident, you have a much higher chance of getting a settlement if you take the issue to court.
Share29 March 2017
Hello, my name is Matthew. Welcome to my site. I am here to talk to you about accident and personal injury attorneys. When I was involved in a serious accident, I had to recover for months in the hospital. My finances suffered due to mounting medical bills and lost wages. I dealt with considerable pain through every phase of the healing process. I worked with an accident and personal injury attorney to obtain compensation for the repercussions of the accident. I created this site to help others find an attorney to work with so they too could acquire compensation following an accident.