What Causes Truck Accidents? And Who Pays if I Get Injured?

After a serious commercial vehicle or truck accident, you and your loved ones may be asking, “How did this happen?” Unfortunately, that’s not always an easy question to answer. And it’s a good bet that the truck driver (and the company that employs them) might give a very different explanation than you would.

Truck accidents are often complex, with multiple contributing factors. That can make it difficult for injured passenger vehicle occupants and their loved ones to get the compensation they deserve from the responsible parties.

If you’ve been injured (or a loved one was killed) in a truck accident, it’s important to identify the root causes and back them up with solid evidence. In this blog, we’ll outline some of the most common causes of truck accidents, and explain how an experienced attorney can help you keep the truck companies accountable and fight for fair compensation.

Breaking Down the Most Common Causes of Truck Accidents

First, it’s important to distinguish between critical reasons for truck accidents and contributing factors. This distinction will impact your compensation and help determine who is at fault.

Critical Causes of Truck Accidents

In short, the critical cause of a semi truck accident is any final decision, act, or incident that made the accident inevitable. It usually occurs immediately before the crash and is often a direct result of negligence on the part of the truck driver, passenger vehicle driver, or sometimes both.

Examples of driver-related critical causes include:

• Speeding or reckless driving
• Making an illegal turn or other unsafe maneuver
• Failing to check for traffic when pulling out or changing lanes
• Distracted driving (eating, checking a phone, fiddling with the radio, etc.)
• Driving while drunk or under the influence of drugs
• Falling asleep at the wheel

Not all critical causes of truck accidents can be attributed to driver error, however. Sometimes the critical cause is environmental—for example, unsafe road conditions, poor weather conditions or visibility, or improper signage or signals.

The critical cause may be also related to equipment or mechanical failure, particularly when large commercial trucks are involved. Tire blowouts, brake failure, power steering failure, and other issues relating to the semi truck itself may be responsible.

Contributing Factors to Truck Accidents

Sometimes, the critical cause alone can fully explain the accident. But quite often in commercial truck cases, there are also several contributing factors lurking under the surface. Although they may not have been the direct cause of the accident, contributing factors can still indicate careless disregard for safety on the part of the truck driver, trucking company, or other parties.

Some common examples of contributing factors to large truck crashes include:

• Driver fatigue due to excessively long hours on the road, pressure to meet impossible deadlines, or skipping mandatory breaks
• Negligent employment practices on the part of the trucking company (for example, hiring underqualified drivers or retaining drivers with multiple safety violations)
• Poor driver training
• Improper loading of the truck (making it more susceptible to crashing)
• Other regulatory compliance failures on the part of the truck driver or company

Who Is at Fault for My Truck Accident?

Each truck accident is unique. Just as there may be multiple contributing factors to an accident between large trucks and passenger vehicles, there may be multiple parties who share some degree of the fault.

Like other kinds of personal injury incidents, fault in a truck accident case is based on the legal concept of negligence. In order to share in the fault, you must show that a responsible party:

• Owed you a duty of care (e.g., following posted speed limits and other rules of the road, taking reasonable actions to avoid collisions, etc.)
• Violated that duty of care
• Caused harm to you (“damages”) as a result of that violation

Potentially liable parties in a commercial truck crash case might include:

• Negligent truck driver. The trucker might personally be at fault if they were operating the truck in an unsafe manner.
• The employer of the truck driver. The commercial vehicle company is responsible for the actions of the drivers they employ. They must also follow strict state and federal regulations regarding hiring, training, and more. However, they often cut corners in the name of pursuing profit.
• Equipment manufacturer. If the crash was caused by faulty tires, brakes, or other equipment due to a fundamental design flaw, the manufacturer may be considered negligent.
• Maintenance company. Tractor trailers and other large trucks and commercial vehicles need to be inspected and maintained regularly. If the maintenance team ignored critical safety issues or performed sloppy repairs, they could be responsible for the crash.
• Cargo loader. If a semi truck is loaded improperly, truck handling may be compromised and the trailer may be prone to tipping over.
• Bar or restaurant. If the truck driver has been drinking, and was knowingly overserved, the establishment that overserved them may bear some of the legal responsibility.
• You. A jury may find that the driver of a passenger car may share in the responsibility if they were also driving in an unsafe or negligent manner.

Why Liability Matters

Identifying all the liable parties is an important step for a couple of major reasons.

The first is the doctrine of comparative negligence. In Texas, if you are found to be more than 50% at fault for your accident, you cannot receive any compensation—even if you’ve suffered serious injuries and the commercial truck driver was also negligent. And if you are found to be partially responsible but at 50% or less of the total blame, your compensation will be reduced by your share of the fault.

The second is about applicable insurance policies and coverage limits. When a heavy truck collides with a small passenger car, the resulting injuries are often catastrophic. You may rack up hundreds of thousands in medical bills. However, the truck driver’s personal insurance coverage may not provide a nearly high enough limit to compensate you fairly.

On the other hand, trucking companies (and other corporate entities) tend to have much higher liability limits on their insurance policies.

Identifying all the potential sources of fault and insurance coverage may be necessary to maximize the amount of compensation you can actually collect.

An experienced legal team will help you navigate the complexities of a truck accident case and ensure you are fairly compensated by all parties involved. We will look at all angles of the case, including the driver’s personal fault, the fault of the trucking company, and even how the maintenance or support companies may share in the blame.