Federal and state laws regulate trucking companies, setting safety standards like FMCSA for interstate, covering driver hours, and maintaining and inspecting the vehicle’s brakes and steering to ensure that they are at full capacity, licensing, and cargo security.
The state also adds rules for intrastate operations like weight limits, road restrictions, and unique commercial driver license (CDL) requirements. Accidents happen due to trucking company negligence when these regulations are ignored.
When the trucking company is found to be liable for the accident, you can sue them with a truck accident lawyer’s help who specializes in truck company negligence cases.
Common Negligent Actions of Truck Companies
When trucking companies act selfish and greedy by ignoring the mandatory safety practices, they create more possibilities for truck accidents and can be held liable.
Failure to Background Check While Hiring
Before hiring a driver, truck companies must look into the candidate’s background and completely check if they’re fully qualified to drive a truck.
The trucking company needs to review if the driver has a CDL and their driving and medical records to check if they’re healthy enough to operate a truck.
When the trucking company overlooks the obvious red flags, such as a history of criminal records, driving offenses like DUI, and substance abuse in the past, they can be held liable for exposing an unqualified driver on the road, posing a risk to public safety.
Inadequate Training and Supervision
Commercial trucks aren’t easy to handle because of their enormous size, no matter how skilled someone is at driving. Truck companies have a federal duty to train the drivers, ensuring they become skilled enough to operate a truck.
When trucking companies fail to provide adequate training on vehicle operation, safety procedures, service regulations, and securing cargo and fail to supervise if the driver sticks to federal regulations and follows the safety procedures, they’re held liable.
Pressuring or Forcing Drivers to Work Overtime
Some truck companies pressure their drivers to meet unrealistic deadlines and force them to work more hours a day than the federal limit. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) only requires truck drivers to work 11 hours a day and allows them to take a 30-minute break every 8 hours to keep their health and safety in check.
When trucking companies ignore the federal hours of service regulation, their drivers spend consecutive hours on the road, beyond the limit of 11 hours a day, and they don’t get adequate sleep.
All these factors make the drivers become fatigued, and these drowsy or fatigued drivers are more likely to have poor vision and reaction times and miss traffic signals, leading to truck accidents.
Overloading Cargo
The trucking company has to make sure the cargo is loaded properly into the trailers, complying with federal standards. Even when contracted shippers load the trucks, the company still must cross-verify to check that the trailer isn’t overloaded.
Improper or unbalanced cargo in trailers makes it harder for drivers to control the truck and causes the weight to shift its angle, leading to jackknife or rollover accidents.
Poor Maintenance of Vehicles
Companies must regularly inspect and maintain their trucks under FMCSA’s regulations. Truck parts like brakes, steering, tires, trail connections, and lights must meet the safety standards before they put the truck and driver on the road.
When mechanical defects from poor maintenance, faulty brakes, and worn-out tires lead to accidents, the company is directly liable for the accident.
Encouraging Unsafe Practices
Some truck companies let unsafe practices go unchecked or even encourage them indirectly. When they incentivize drivers with supplemental pay, encouraging them to drive aggressively or even use substances to enhance driving for a while, it can lead to accidents, and the company can be held liable for creating such an environment.
Key Takeaways
- Failing to background check the required legal records of the drivers makes the truck company liable.
- Failing to provide proper training and supervision to check if the driver follows safety procedures.
- Pressuring drivers to work overtime, leading to accidents due to fatigue.
- Overloading the trailers with cargo can cause jackknife accidents.
- Companies can be held liable when accidents are caused by ignoring proper maintenance of vehicles.
- An unsafe environment where substance abuse and reckless driving aren’t punished, and drivers are rewarded with extra money for extra working hours.
