Trucking Accidents and Drowsy Driving
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) reported that in 2008, around 4,000 people died in trucking accidents. Trucking accidents mostly involve large trucks such as tractor-trailers, single-unit trucks, and it accounts for as much as 11 percent of all motor vehicle crash deaths.
Large trucks also have higher fatal crash rates per mile traveled than passenger vehicles. Since trucks are 20-30 times bigger and heavier than ordinary cars, crashes involving both vehicles yield a 69 percent fatality rate for passenger vehicle occupants.
While trucking accidents may occur due to adverse weather conditions or even vehicle defects, a large factor for truck crashes is drowsy driving. The IIHS claimed that a truck driver’s long work hours of driving (more than 8 hours) which causes sleep deprivation and fatigue increased the risk of a trucking accident twice as much. The following are other causes of drowsy driving:
- Sleep loss
- Erratic/shifting driving hours
- Driving for a long without taking a break
- Use of sedatives or medicines that cause drowsiness
- Sleep disorders
- Alcohol-use
Aside from the obvious danger of falling asleep at the wheel and running off the road, if a driver is drowsy or fatigued, lapses of attention are more likely to occur and the driver may not be quick enough to react or avoid to a road hazard and crash.
Drowsy driving was actually likened to drunk driving. A study in Australia showed that being awake for 18 hours result to an impairment equal to a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of .05 percent. If the driver is awake for more than 24 hours, his impairment is equivalent to a BAC of.10 percent, higher that the US legal limit of .08 percent.
If you or your family was involved in a crash with large truck and you had no fault or negligence, consult a trucking accident attorney. Aside from the holding the driver of the truck liable for any injury or death which may have occurred due to the accident, a claim for damages may be filed the owners or employers of the truck drivers.
Under the law, both the employer and the employee driver are required to exercise diligence in hiring as well as driving the truck. Failure of either party to do such (i.e. employer failed to check on the driver’s license or training or driver was drunk) entitled the victims of the trucking accident to recover any expenses lost due to their negligence.
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