In an average year, roughly 15 million commercial trucks that travel throughout the U.S. Although such trucks transport many products that Georgia residents use, they can also be involved in significant accidents. In the past 10 years, truck accidents have gone up by 20 percent. The recently released Large Truck Crash Causation Study was tasked with trying to find out why fatal accidents involving such vehicles occur.
Researchers reviewed 120,000 fatal commercial truck accidents over a period of 33 months. Roughly three out of every four crashes studied involved multiple vehicles. The truck driver was deemed to be liable for causing 68,000 of the accidents analyzed. In 12 percent of those accidents, the driver fell asleep or was otherwise impaired at the time of the collision. In 28 percent of the crashes, a trucker was distracted or failed to react to road conditions in a timely manner.
The majority of the fatal accidents studied occurred because of a lack of good decision making on the part of the truck driver. According to the study, 38 percent of fatal crashes deemed to be the driver’s fault occurred because of poor decision making. This meant that the driver either followed too closely, was going too fast for road conditions or was not driving at the posted speed limit.
Individuals who are involved in motor vehicle accidents involving large trucks may experience serious injuries. These injuries could require many weeks, months or years of rehabilitation to recover from. If an accident was caused by driver negligence, the victim could be entitled to compensation for their injuries. Compensation may help to pay for current and future medical bills.
