The aftermath of any Indiana traffic accident can be overwhelming. Determining who was at fault, who should pay for damages, and how much victims are due can be challenging. The task is more complicated when the accident involves a semi-truck or other commercial vehicles.
Collisions involving large commercial trucks often involve substantial injuries, multiple at-fault parties, multiple insurance carriers, and a significant amount of evidence to evaluate.
If you have been injured in an Indiana truck accident caused by someone else’s negligence, you may be entitled to seek compensation for your losses. However, it can be challenging to gather evidence to prove you are entitled to full compensation after a complex truck accident claim.
The knowledgeable truck accident attorneys of Craig, Kelley & Faultless LLC have more than 30 years of experience handling these types of claims. Two of our lead attorneys are among a select group of attorneys nationwide who are board-certified in commercial truck accident law by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. Contact us today for a free consultation to learn more about how we can help you seek the compensation you deserve.
Why Truck Accidents Are So Complicated
Large truck accidents are different from car accidents in many ways. The following aspects of commercial trucking tend to make truck accidents more complicated to resolve:
Trucks Are More Difficult to Maintain and Operate
Trucks are significantly longer, wider, taller, and heavier than standard passenger cars and SUVs. According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), a fully-loaded truck can weigh as much as 20 to 30 times as much as an average passenger vehicle.
The size and mass of a tractor-trailer make it that much more difficult to operate. Truck drivers must make wider turns, slow down sooner before stopping, and be more careful on uphill or downhill roads.
Commercial trucks also undergo a lot more wear and tear on the road due to the mileage they travel and the sheer number of moving parts. They require more maintenance to remain roadworthy, and inadequate maintenance is frequently a causal factor in truck accidents. When it’s unclear how a crash occurred, it’s more difficult to determine who should be held responsible. Identifying mechanical issues that contributed to a truck accident requires the involvement of a knowledgeable truck accident lawyer working with a qualified diesel mechanic.
Unique Laws and Regulations Apply to Trucks
Commercial truck drivers and trucking companies are subject to numerous federal regulations, including regulations that govern:
- Drug and alcohol use and testing – Commercial drivers have a lower legal limit for blood alcohol concentration and must submit to controlled substance and alcohol tests under certain circumstances. A truck driver convicted of drunk driving will lose their commercial driver’s license.
- Hours of service (HOS) rules – Commercial truck drivers are limited to driving a certain number of hours per day and get at least a minimum number of hours of rest each day to comply with HOS regulations.
- Record-keeping requirements – Carriers must create and maintain regular records of their compliance with driver qualification requirements, drug and alcohol testing requirements, truck maintenance requirements, and HOS regulations.
When truck industry regulations are violated, and the violation leads to a truck accident, it means that the truck driver, the trucking company, or both may be directly liable for the accident. If a fatigued truck driver caused an accident after violating the hours-of-service rules under pressure from their employer, both the driver and the trucking company may be responsible for the crash.
Damages and Injuries Tend to Be More Serious
The enormous size difference between a large commercial truck and a passenger car means the occupants of the smaller vehicle tend to bear the brunt of the injuries in an accident.
According to data from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a whopping 82 percent of those killed in large truck crashes in 2019 were occupants of passenger vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists, or motorcyclists. Just 16 percent of truck accident fatalities were truck occupants.
Serious injuries involve long recovery periods. That can make it more difficult to calculate compensation in a truck accident claim. You typically need to reach maximum medical improvement or be able to estimate your future medical costs before agreeing to settle a truck accident claim. Otherwise, the settlement may not cover your costs, and you may be left bearing part of the costs.
Claims Are Often Worth More Money
When accident victims sustain more serious injuries and more catastrophic vehicle damage in truck accidents, their compensation claims tend to be more expensive. When more money is at stake, things have a way of becoming more complicated.
Commercial trucks and truck drivers are required to carry higher amounts of liability insurance because of the extent of damage a big rig can cause. As a result, commercial insurance companies will have lawyers working to minimize the payment to settle a claim. Their interest is to protect their bottom lines.
Multiple Parties May Be At Fault
It’s not always clear who is at fault immediately after a car accident, but the list of potentially liable parties tends to be relatively short. In most car accident cases, one or both of the drivers involved in the crash or another road user is ultimately responsible.
When it comes to truck accidents, there may be parties who are at fault. Many different individuals and businesses are typically involved in the operation of a commercial vehicle, including:
- The truck driver
- The trucking company
- The owner of the trailer
- Cargo loading teams
- Truck maintenance teams
- Truck component manufacturers
- Third-party vendors
Multiple layers of potential liability can make it more difficult to determine who should be held legally after a truck accident. If accident victims can prove liability on behalf of multiple parties, they may ultimately have access to more insurance policies to provide compensation.
There Are Different Types of Evidence Available
After a car accident, the evidence is typically limited to the physical traces left behind by the wreck, any recorded video footage of the collision, and statements from any eyewitnesses who saw what happened.
After a truck accident, there are often several additional types of evidence to evaluate, including:
- Truck “black box” data
- Maintenance logs
- Hours of service logs
- Cargo loading manifests
- Company hiring records
More evidence can be useful, but securing it requires an attorney experienced in handling semi-truck accidents.
Identifying a Truck Driver Involved in a Crash If They Are Liable
As technology advances around us, so does the ability to determine what happened in a commercial semi-truck accident and who or what is responsible for the crash. Our truck accident attorneys at Craig Kelley and Faultless can use the information downloaded from a truck’s black box recorder, for example, to pursue compensation for victims of truck crashes in Indiana. It’s one more reason for you to contact a truck accident attorney if you have been injured in a truck accident.
Technological advances in the trucking and automotive industry have changed the face of accident investigations much the way that moving from landline telephones to 5G-powered smartphones has changed daily life, says Fleet Owner, a publication for executives and managers of commercial trucks fleets.
Technologies on Large Trucks That What Happened After a Truck Accident
Electronic Computer Modules
Electronic Computer Modules (ECMs) on commercial trucks typically save last-stop data and record the last two hard stops made by the truck. Data from ECMs show us the truck’s speed, throttle input (acceleration), and braking (or lack thereof) just before an accident. These sensors also record whether the driver veered left or right just before the impact of a crash or did not steer their vehicle to try to avoid the accident. A lack of reaction to avoid a collision may indicate the truck driver was distracted or had fallen asleep.
At the start of a truck accident investigation, we would issue a spoliation letter advising a trucking company of our investigation and the records such as these that should be preserved as evidence.
Safety Sensors
Safety sensors on commercial trucks are meant to keep the vehicles out of accidents. They are radar devices that track the truck’s movements and trigger an automated corrective response when needed. For example, forward-looking sensors automatically slow trucks when traffic ahead slows or stops unexpectedly, thus theoretically avoiding rear-end accidents.
Other sensors on a commercial truck measure and alert the driver to truck and trailer sway, lane departures, and loss of tire pressure.
In addition to warning the trucker, these automated systems also alert the driver’s dispatcher to a potential problem occurring on an Indiana highway or elsewhere on the road. This information is recorded and becomes available to our investigators after an accident.
Video Surveillance
It’s hard to top actual video footage of a trucker doing something that contributed to an accident. Dashboard cameras aimed into the cab of a truck might show a trucker talking on a handheld cellphone while driving, which is illegal, or nodding off or falling asleep at the wheel, which is a common cause of truck accidents in Indiana.
Dashcams put in place so the trucking company can monitor driver habits are becoming more common in commercial trucks. We can subpoena the footage after an accident. “In these instances, the video either confirms the truck driver was entirely at fault or not at all at fault,” Fleet Owner says. “Either way, this level of clarity makes resolving claims more efficient and less costly.”
The rise in technology is also contributing to the amount of video evidence potentially available to investigators. Security cameras can be found surrounding businesses, offices, schools, and warehouses, as well as around private homes.
“(A) vital part of any accident investigation now includes canvassing the area surrounding the accident site to identify and obtain any security surveillance video that may have captured the incident,” Fleet Owner says.
Drug and Alcohol Testing
In another recent report, Fleet Owner says technology now offers assistance to ensure compliance with drug and alcohol testing of truck drivers, including solutions for planning and scheduling random tests and for documenting and recording test results.
The FMCSA’s drug and alcohol clearinghouse has established a database for any driver’s positive test results and/or test refusals recorded after January 6, 2020. All commercial drivers seeking employment with a carrier now must register with the clearinghouse, and motor carriers are to check the database as part of the hiring process.
This should close a loophole in the system that allowed drivers who had failed a drug or alcohol test to attempt to find employment elsewhere without that carrier ever finding out about the prior failed test, an industry consultant told Fleet Owner.
These records of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will be public records available to anyone, including crash investigators employed by law firms like ours.
The FMCSA announced in December that it was increasing the random drug testing rate from 25% to 50% in 2020. This means motor carriers must run a number of random tests over the course of the year equal to half of the average number of licensed commercial drivers nationwide.
The FMCSA estimates there are 3.2 million commercial driver license holders participating in interstate commerce and 1 million CDL holders participating in intrastate commerce. Under the annual random testing rate of 50%, approximately 2.1 million random tests will need to be conducted in 2020, according to an explanation by Transport Topics.
By law, the FMCSA administrator must increase the minimum annual random testing percentage rate when the data received under the requirements for any calendar year indicate that the positive rate is equal to or greater than 1%. The rate was reduced when the estimated positive usage rate for drugs was 0.8% in 2017 and 0.7% in 2016. But it was raised for 2020 after FMCSA’s 2018 Drug and Alcohol Testing Survey revealed that the positive rate for controlled substances in random testing had increased to 1%.
The minimum rate for random alcohol testing will remain at 10%.
Contact a Truck Accident Lawyer Today
No matter how complex your Indiana truck accident claim, the award-winning attorneys at Craig, Kelley & Faultless LLC are here to help. To discuss the details of your case with a knowledgeable attorney, call us today at (800) 746-0226 or contact us online.
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