When To Report a Trucking Company

The moment you get behind the wheel of your car for any trip, you’re sharing the road.

Whether you’re headed around the corner for your weekly grocery shopping at the Piggly Wiggly or if you’re headed down to Gulfport for a family vacation, you’ll be driving along all kinds of makes and models of vehicles, and that includes semi-trucks.

Each one of those drivers owes a duty of care to all the other drivers to obey the traffic laws and drive responsibly. If everyone followed that duty of care, there might be no accidents. Unfortunately, reckless driving occurs for various reasons, which can lead to accidents.

When commercial vehicles are involved, those truck accidents can be especially catastrophic.

One of the most important ways to avoid those accidents is to report a truck driver’s behavior and their trucking company to the appropriate authorities. Once alerted, that truck driver can be tracked down and the incident addressed.

The following are some of the incidents involving a truck driver and a trucking company that you should report.

Traffic Violations

One of the most obvious reasons to report a truck driver is if you witness them engaging in reckless driving, such as speeding, changing lanes without signaling, and tailgating. Any of those behaviors can lead to an accident.

Issues with the Cargo

You might not always be able to see what is inside a truck container, but you can observe things like the fact that the doors on the back of the truck are not secure. If the truck is an open bed, you might notice loose cargo or cargo that is improperly secured. This is especially important if the truck is transporting hazardous material. These incidents should be reported immediately to 911.

Road Rage

Road rage occurs when a driver becomes angry at another driver for a perceived slight. Unless a driver directly caused an accident, there is no reason to fly off in a rage. You can be angry, but you don’t want to compound the situation by chasing after a car to “make a point.” When a truck driver engages in road rage, they have an extremely dangerous weapon with their 80,000-pound truck.

Distracted Truck Driver

Every driver needs to stay focused on the road. If a truck driver is looking at their phone or watching a video on a dashboard monitor, they are not paying attention, and you should report them.

Where Should You Report a Truck Company and Driver?

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is in charge of regulating the trucking industry. They have established rules that truckers and truck companies must follow regarding service hours, cargo securement, and vehicle inspections.

To report an incident, you can call 1-888-DOT-SAFT (368-7238) from 8 am‒8 pm, Monday-Friday EST.

You can also submit a complaint on the FMCSA website. You can find out more about the steps to take for reporting an incident with a trucker here.

If you have any supporting evidence, like a photo or video, you can include that as part of your claim.

Why Reporting a Trucking Company Matters

When an accident involving a truck occurs, it will be thoroughly investigated by both local authorities and federal agencies. If you’ve been the victim of a collision with a truck, you can assign blame to the truck driver, but the trucking company also shares in the responsibility for the actions of its employee.

A trucking company that fails to conduct due diligence in its hiring practices may put a truck driver on the road with a history of traffic violations.

If that same trucking company doesn’t perform regular screenings for drug and alcohol abuse, and the driver is found to be intoxicated when driving, that would be another reason that the company should be held accountable.

These are the exact types of issues that the attorneys at Pittman, Roberts & Welsh, PLLC will thoroughly investigate. We understand the importance of holding all at-fault parties accountable as we work diligently to secure the maximum benefits for our clients.

If you’ve been involved in an accident with a truck, we want to hear what happened.

Call to schedule a consultation about what happened.