There are many different vehicles on the roads every day in southern California. People drive sedans, SUVs, pickup trucks, motorcycles and other types of vehicles. One of these other types of vehicles are semi trucks. All of these vehicles need to share the roads, follow the various traffic laws and keep themselves free of distractions. When drivers do this it helps ensure their own safety as well as the other drivers on the road. While it is important for all drivers to drive safely, it is especially important for semi-truck drivers.
Semi-trucks are much larger than most other types of vehicles on the roads and when they are involved in crashes, they can cause significant damage to the other vehicles involved and cause serious injuries to the people involved in the accident. Semi-truck accidents can occur for a number of reasons and not all of them are caused by semi-truck drivers, but many are due to their negligence.
Common ways truck drivers cause accidents
According to a study on the causes of truck accidents, 78,000 accidents involving trucks were caused by the driver or other reasons due to the truck. 68,000 of those accidents were due to driver errors, 8,000 were caused due to problems with the truck itself and 2,000 were caused by the environmental causes.
Of the 68,000 accidents due to the drivers’ errors, 30,000 of them were due to decisions made by the driver such as misjudging the speed of other drivers or driving too fast for the conditions. 22,000 were caused by recognition errors such as being distracted or inattentive. 9,000 were non-performance issues such as falling asleep or having a medical emergency. 7,000 were caused because the performance issues like overcompensating or panicking.
Unfortunately, there are many truck accidents in southern California each year. Many people are seriously injured in these accidents, which can be devastating both physically and financially as medical bills can grow quickly and people may lose income if they are unable to work. The victims may be entitled to compensation for these injuries if they were caused by the truck driver. Experienced attorneys understand the importance of this compensation and may be a useful resource.