Last year the National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported approximately 5,000 trucking accidents that resulted in death. The majority of these accidents are preventable due to inadequate regulations. These accidents are usually due to fatigue, excessive driving time, speeding and/or distracted driving. These all could be regulated but currently there is no effective way for roadside enforcement to check the hours driven. The problem could be eliminated if motor carriers were required to use electronic on board recording devices, technology that currently exists.
Commercial trucks only make up 4 percent of all registered vehicles, yet are responsible for 11 percent of all fatal accidents. Truck accidents rarely result in fender-benders and most result in damage to smaller vehicles and their drivers. Truck drivers tend to falsify their logged hours, making it difficult for law enforcement to be effective. This can result in the catastrophic injuries and deaths that are so common in the trucking industry.
In 2011 new processes will be implemented that include new safety rules that will hold drivers and motor carriers more accountable for violations of these rules.
If you or someone you know has been injured in a trucking accident, an experienced accident attorney can help to protect your rights. For more information on your rights following a trucking accident contact LegalView today. Our operators are available 24 hours a day 7 days a week. 1-866-952-9669.
Tags: Auto Accidents, Car Accident, Car Accidents, crashworthiness
This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 11th, 2011 at 7:15 am and is filed under Automobile Accidents. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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