Fatal truck crashes buck accident trend, rising again during 2019
Fatal truck crashes buck accident trend, rising again during 2019
Roadway accidents involving large trucks in Louisiana and nationally are simply different from crashes featuring smaller passenger vehicles.
That’s obvious, right? An 18-wheel rig, tractor trailer or other commercial truck commands dimensions that flatly dwarf those of cars sharing the road with them. A large truck can weigh scores of thousands of pounds and be 70 feet in length or longer. Truckers have comparatively limited visibility and far less mobility than passenger cars. And they can eat up distance the size of a football field before coming to a stop from highway speed.
It’s thus no surprise that their performance and linked crash data are routinely scrutinized by national transportation regulators. Chief among them are the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Both those agencies oversee the nation’s trucking industry and closely track relevant safety and accident information.
Here’s a point prominently made by the NHTSA in a recent report: Whereas traffic deaths overall fell nationally in 2019 compared with 2018 fatalities, they actually increased marginally for crashes involving at least one big truck.
And that is no anomaly. The FMCSA notes that fatal accidents featuring large trucks increased nationally by nearly 6% over a recent 3-year period. That is duly concerning, and it has prompted a new agency study that will focus on identifying factors most central as crash catalysts.
Truck-linked accidents can upend the lives of crash victims and their loved ones. It is important to note that they can pursue meaningful legal remedies marked by maximum compensation against negligent parties, who can sometimes be multiple in number.
