Driving Too Fast, A Leading Cause of Truck Accidents

Truckers often drive too fast for the road conditions. Driving too fast for conditions, not necessarily speeding, accounts for almost one quarter of all truck accidents. All told, excessive speed results in about 30,000 truck accidents per year.

The physics of truck accidents equate to horrific results. Trucking accidents are more often than not catastrophic leading to very serious injuries or wrongful death. Add excessive speed to the mix and these accidents are typically deadly.

Excessive Speed is incentivized in the Trucking

Unfortunately, the pressures on truck driver performance incentivize excessive speed. The problem is very unlikely to improve. Instead, it is probably more likely to get worse when viewed in the context of constant truck industry pressure to increase allowable hours of service. With increase hours comes lessened rest time. Speed is the only thing to make up the difference.

The trucking industry’s position on hours of service flies in the face of safety. There is no disputing that the allowable hours of service cause fatigue which is itself a leading cause of accidents. Worse yet, once these very predictable and typically deadly accidents do occur, the truck industry, the truck company and the truck driver will one and all attempt to dodge responsibility.

Truck Accident Claims Will be a Battle for Fair Compensation

This means that innocent victims of these truck accidents will be harmed twice, once due to the accident, and again when the truck company does everything possible to avoid responsibility for the accident. It will be a struggle to say the least to obtain full and fair compensation for these injuries.

An experienced personal injury attorney is essential in cases of serious injury or death resulting from truck accidents. Even then, fair compensation will be a fight. The Albuquerque attorneys at Collins & Collins, P.C. can help. We can be reached at (505) 242-5958.