When you examine dashcam videos of semi-truck accidents, you’ll see an interesting trend. In many of these crashes, the driver presses the brakes but is unable to stop the vehicle in time.
For example, a truck driver could suddenly arrive at a construction zone where traffic has backed up unexpectedly. If they don’t stop in time, they could strike the rear vehicles and even cause a multi-car collision. This is also a common issue at red lights. If the truck does not have a big enough gap, the small passenger vehicles ahead of it can stop much more quickly and may be rear-ended by the semi-truck.
Longer stopping distances
One of the main reasons for this is that semi-trucks can weigh up to 80,000 pounds and have stopping distances of around 525 feet. By comparison, your average passenger car will weigh around 4,000 pounds and have a stopping distance of around 300 feet. So truck drivers who brake late, even by a split second, may find that it’s impossible for them to stop the car before causing a crash.
This is why things like distracted driving, impaired driving and even fatigued driving are such issues for truck drivers. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration mandates that drivers can’t use handheld devices behind the wheel, for instance, so that they always have their eyes on the road.
Unfortunately, truck drivers do sometimes still make mistakes and cause rear-end accidents that can have catastrophic consequences for people in much smaller passenger cars. If you or your family members have suffered severe injuries, you need to know if you have a right to compensation for medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering, lost earning capacity and much more.