Articles Posted in Legal Concepts in Truck Accident Cases

Under perfect road conditions, it takes an attentive and well trained truck driver 96 yards to stop an unloaded eighteen wheeler traveling at 55 miles per hour. Traveling at typical highway speed, 65 miles per hour, the same truck will take 129 yards to come to a stop. Unfortunately, conditions are hardly ever perfect, and truck drivers are not always attentive or well trained, and tractor trailers are often heavily laden with goods. In poor weather, a loaded eighteen wheeler can take over two football fields to stop. Poor weather and road conditions increase the distance necessary to stop a truck and also elevates the risk of death or injury to Maryland drivers.

Because of these considerations, federal law increased the level of care owed by truck drivers in Maryland during inclement weather. Through rain, sleet, snow, or fog, truck drivers must, by law, maintain a higher level of care. Extreme care requires, amongst other things, that large truck drivers reduce their speed and increase the distance between themselves and other drivers on the roads. Additionally, if the hazardous conditions persist, drivers of commercial vehicles must get off the road until the weather or road conditions improve.

Big rig operators in Maryland know what the law requires and many operate their eighteen wheelers professionally and responsibly through poor weather or road conditions. However, federal law and Maryland truck accident attorneys work to punish those who do not. In Maryland, poor weather caused 25% of the fatal eighteen wheeler accidents. Today, trucking companies are able to transmit up-to-date weather information to the truck drivers they dispatch across Maryland and the nation. Many eighteen-wheelers operating with major carriers have computers installed in their cabs to receive messages from their home offices. Maryland law, if not federal law, should require carriers to transmit information on weather and road conditions to their drivers and direct them to leave the highways during extreme weather. The attorneys at Lebowitz and Mzhen believe that this step could save the lives of drivers on Maryland’s highways.

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Plaintiffs in Maryland may recover money damages from a negligent truck driver’s employer based on the legal theory of negligent entrustment. Negligent entrustment allows Maryland accident attorneys to accomplish two objects important to a plaintiff’s personal injury suit. First, this method of recovery allows a plaintiff to avoid the situation where the truck driver does not have sufficient personal assets or insurance coverage to satisfy a potential monetary award. Second, the theory allows plaintiffs to punish careless owners of trucking companies who put Marylanders at risk of serious injury or death caused by negligently operated or maintained trucks.

Under Maryland law, negligent entrustment has three elements that must be demonstrated before the court during trial. First, the plaintiff’s attorney must prove that the trucking company owner was a legal supplier that made the truck available to the driver. Second, the plaintiff must prove that the owner knew or should have known that the truck was in defective condition or that the truck driver, due to inexperience or other factors, was likely to drive the truck in a manner that put others at risk of harm. Finally, an attorney must prove that the injured plaintiff was the type of person the supplier would expect to be endangered by a negligent truck driver.

Maryland courts define a supplier as anyone who has the right to permit and the power to prohibit the use of the truck. If the negligent truck driver’s employer owned the truck, then the owners is legally a supplier who made the truck available to the negligent driver. In a number of cases, Maryland courts have held that truck company owners are legal suppliers if they possess trucks and provide them to drivers that they employ.

Although the number of large truck involved in deadly accidents decreased from 4,766 trucks in 2006 to 4,584 in 2007, the number of large-truck related deaths—4,808 fatalities—and injuries—100,000 victims—is still too high. Truck accidents can occur both from trucker negligence and the negligence of other motorists and pedestrians. Regardless of who caused the accident, however, in many cases it is the pedestrian, motorcyclist, bicyclist, or occupant of the passenger car involved in a collision with a large truck that sustains the most catastrophic injuries or dies.

Commercial truckers are professional drivers who are held to a higher standard of safety on the road than regular motorists. Not only are they operating large vehicles weighing thousands of pounds, but many times, they are transporting extremely heavy or dangerous/hazardous cargo in their vehicles.

It is important that truck drivers exercise extreme caution when operating their large trucks at all times so they can safely arrive to their destinations without becoming involved in a motor vehicle crash. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration offers a number of safety tips for bus and truck drivers:

• Make sure you are well rested before getting in your truck.
• Do not exceed the maximum hours of service that you are allowed to operate your vehicle.
• Make sure that your truck is up-to-date on all maintenance work and that you inspect your truck—especially the brakes—before you go anywhere.
• Monitor your blind spots regularly when driving. 30% of large truck crashes happen in the trucker’s “No-Zone” area.
• Slow down when you are driving close to construction work zones. 30% of deadly work zone accidents involve large trucks.
• If a large truck rear ends another vehicle, liability is often placed on the truck driver. Make sure to keep a safe distance between you and the auto in front of you.
• Wear a seatbelt to protect yourself from sustaining serious injuries in the event of a traffic accident.

• Be a defensive—not an aggressive—truck driver.

Safety Tips for Truck and Bus Drivers, FMCSA
Large Trucks Safety Fact Sheet, NHTSA
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

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An injured party may present a negligent truck driver’s traffic citation as evidence of negligence when the truck driver violates traffic law and causes an injury as a result. Anyone who has received a speeding ticket knows that state traffic laws govern all Maryland drivers; however, truck drivers are also governed by additional state and federal regulations. If a truck driver violates any of these laws and causes a car accident, the injured party may use that violation as evidence of the truck driver’s negligence.

The Maryland accident attorneys represented the victim of a truck accident where the truck driver violated Maryland law and caused the victim’s injuries. The victim was traveling on the highway when the driver of the speeding tractor trailer lost control of the truck and violently crashed into the rear of the victim’s automobile. The police on scene ticketed the truck driver for speeding and failing to control his vehicle. As a result of the accident, the victim suffered a broken pelvis and other serious injuries. The victim’s counsel relied upon the truck driver’s tickets to prove that the truck driver had acted negligently.

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