Large Truck / Semi Truck Defects

Every year, over 5,000 people die in crashes involving large trucks; thousands more are seriously injured and maimed. Large trucks account for less than 5 percent of the registered vehicles in this country, yet they are involved in more than 10 percent of all fatal crashes. Most of these fatalities involve other motorists who were innocently sharing the road with these big trucks. The causes of this on-going safety hazard are well defined. The solutions may not be so easily obtained.

The causes of fatalities and injuries attributable to large trucks have been summarized by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to include:

1. Driver Fatigue
2. Faulty Brakes
3. Faulty Underride design
4. Faulty Conspicuity design
5. Alcohol and Drugs
6. Multiple-trailer trucks and handling problems
7. Investigating a large truck crash

In 1990, tractor-trailers had a higher fatal crash involvement rate than either passenger cars or single unit trucks.  Twenty four percent of large truck crash deaths occurred on freeways.

Driver Fatigue

Government regulations restrict interstate truck drivers' work shifts and drivers are obliged to keep logs of their hours. Additionally, these regulations prohibit a driver from working more than a certain amount of hours over an 8-day stretch. A direct correlation has been shown between long hours of over-the-road driving and crashes.

As can be expected, these regulations are not well enforced and they have little if any effect on intra-state truck commerce. Various engineering groups are at work developing steering sensitive activities to provide in-cab tactile warnings in the event that a vehicle looses road contact or specific directionality. These computer systems may provide for both visual and oratory warnings through the steering wheel, radio and buzzer system already built into vehicles.

Faulty Brakes

It is obvious to anyone who has observed a large truck that these vehicles require substantially more distance to stop than passenger vehicles. Truck brakes used repeatedly in one long application will heat up and can deteriorate. Many trucks also include brakes which are not "self-adjusting". It is quite typical to find that more than 50 percent of the large truck fleet is operated daily with serious brake defects including out of adjustment brakes.

Faulty Underride Design

Underride accidents occur because the rear end or side of a truck or trailer is relatively high off the ground and there is too little structure under the trailer to resist the striking vehicle, or the structure present is not strong enough to accomplish that purpose. Only in recent years has the U.S. NHTSA begun to require rear underride performance testing which has resulted in some improvement upon this unsafe circumstance.

Faulty Conspicuity Design

For over twenty years, safety researchers and large truck manufacturers have been aware that many accidents occurred because motorists do not see or do not appreciate the speed of large trucks on the road. More night time large truck accidents occur than in day time and that has been related directly to the lack of conspicuity of these vehicles. Studies have estimated that enhancing the conspicuity of trailers would reduce by fifteen percent the incidents of crashes into either the side or rear of trailers.

Alcohol and Drugs

Federal regulations require inter-state carriers and shippers to subject all new commercial drivers to drug and alcohol testing before employment, after an accident and on a random basis. Statistically, it has been reported that alcohol is less a problem in the truck driver population than the passenger vehicle driver population. However, the use of over the counter drugs by inter-state drivers is less well documented. Researchers have found that 33 percent of truckers killed in crashes tested positive for alcohol and other legal and illegal drugs.

Investigating a Large Truck Crash

Like any other accident leading to serious or catastrophic injury or death, the investigation of a large truck crash requires a well developed team approach. The investigator must obtain all scene data including police records and photographs, and vehicle inspection reports generated by the police or the NTSB.

The investigator or counsel should make every effort to obtain control or at least prevent any alterations to the truck until skilled experts can inspect it by way of photographs, measurements and testing. Analyzing the tires of the truck and its braking system post-accident may be critical.

It is also vital that the truck driver's log and diaries be obtained. Equally important is a review of any "in-cab" electronics such as the tractor's speed governor, lights and emergency equipment. If the accident occurred at night, then a series of night time photographs of the truck should be taken with its running lights on and off.

As long as trucks operate on the same highways as the rest of us, there will be thousands of large truck accidents each year. While some of these tragedies are not preventable, there are many which will occur because of either operator negligence or product defect. Fair compensation can only be obtained if the attorneys investigating such incidents are well informed and prepared to delve into the multiple causative reasons why such injury and fatality occurs.