Most of us drive alongside large trucks on a daily basis, no matter whether we only navigate city streets here in Jackson or highways and major interstates. While sharing the road with truckers makes some of us uncomfortable for various reasons, one danger you may not often consider is the prospect of a truck having a defective hitch.
A collision with a large truck is a life-altering experience. A fully loaded tractor-trailer unit can weigh as much as 80,000 pounds and around 35,000 pounds when empty. The average midsize motor vehicle only weighs 3,300 pounds, making your car no match for a commercial truck.
Driving is a task that requires all your focus, attention, and effort. You might feel this more acutely than ever when you are sharing the road with big trucks like tractor-trailers. Your vigilance behind the wheel may not be enough to prevent a collision, though.
Big truck drivers are notoriously overworked, with companies pushing them to spend long hours on the road as they transport consumer goods across Mississippi. Fatigue is a serious, ongoing problem in the trucking industry, and it’s putting you and everyone else on the road at risk for a trucking accident.
Why do some semi-trucks have spikes on the wheels? You may have seen them before—you’re traveling down the highway, look to your left or right, and notice that the 18-wheeler beside you has a cluster of shiny metal spikes attached to the wheel.
A jackknife truck accident is one in which the cab and the trailer fold in on each other as the vehicle comes to a stop. In some cases, the cab and the trailer may come apart, which can increase the risk of serious injuries or fatalities to the truck’s driver and others in the vicinity of the damaged vehicle. Let’s take a closer look at what causes this type of accident and what to do if you are involved in a crash caused by a commercial truck.
By their mere presence, commercial trucks 20-30 times the size of a passenger vehicle pose a threat to other cars with which they share the roads. And these giants of the highway become weapons in the hands of drivers who are reckless behind the wheel. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), 97% of individuals who are killed in tractor-trailers accidents are the drivers of the smaller passenger vehicles, not the truck drivers themselves. Truck drivers have a duty to bear this fact in mind while operating their vehicles.
As a firm of personal injury lawyers in Jackson, we have represented our clients in many legal cases involving commercial trucks. The law gives injured parties and surviving family members of wrongful death victims the means to take action against those who wrongfully caused harm to another. But most of these truck accidents can be prevented by simple acts of vigilance. We as involved citizens owe our friends and neighbors the watchful attention and care we would give our own family members. In this way, we can all play our part in making the roads safer for everyone.
When you’re driving in a regular-sized vehicle, it’s normal to feel some concern while driving alongside a commercial truck. It makes sense—large trucks are up to 30 times bigger than passenger vehicles, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). This feeling also makes sense because the fatalities of truck accidents are occupants of passenger vehicles 67 percent of the time, compared to truck drivers who are the victims 16 percent of the time.
If you’ve been involved in a collision with a large truck that wasn’t your fault, then you could use the help of a lawyer. A truck accident attorney from Pittman Roberts & Welsh, PLLC can provide you with the legal representation you need after a crash in Jackson.
When truck drivers are on the road, their focus on safety is most likely centered around driving and making sure their vehicle is ready for the road. What they may not expect is to experience issues at truck stops. However, between the stop itself and the other people they may encounter, negligence is always a possibility. Sometimes, negligence can cause injuries. Let’s take a look at how dangerous truck stops can be and what you can do if you’ve been injured at one.
When you’re in a car and driving next to a tractor-trailer, it can already be scary enough. But when the truck is about to lose control, the situation becomes even scarier by the second. If you don’t know the warning signs of a truck driver losing control of their rig, then the danger can escalate and become deadly.
If you’ve been in a truck accident in Jackson, you could benefit from having an experienced truck accident lawyer stand up for you against the negligent or reckless driver or trucking company at fault. Truck accidents can cause serious injuries and can easily turn deadly, so representation from Pittman Roberts & Welsh, PLLC ensures that you’ll get compensation for those injuries and damages.
Seeing a tractor trailer laying on its side or flipped over is frightening for a lot of reasons. Not only is it dangerous for the driver of the truck, but it’s also dangerous for all of the cars and drivers in the truck’s path. You might not realize, but large trucks can rollover easily if the conditions are right.
Because of their design, tractor trailers rollover more often than regular vehicles. They have a higher center of gravity, which can be thrown off more easily than a passenger vehicle. They also have more weight that might not be evenly distributed, which makes them easier to tip over.
In fact, 48% of fatal large truck accidents were rollovers, compared to only about 36% of fatal accidents of regular sized vehicles, as reported by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). Overturning of semi-trucks is the most dangerous event that could happen to a truck, and is the leading cause of fatalities in truck accidents, according to he Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).
