The best lawyer to help in a tractor trailer accident is a one who has experience with the Federal Motor Vehicle’s rules and regulations that apply to tractor trailers and their drivers. Many people think that the drivers of these rigs can just hop in their truck and drive, like we do with our passenger vehicles. Well, this simply isn’t true. They are regulated by a completely different set of rules and regulations. There are laws about training, how many hours can be driven, when the rig needs to be maintained, and so on. These laws are strict and extensive and your attorney needs to understand them thoroughly if they are going to represent you in a case.
There are several tools we use to find the cause of a tractor trailer accident, one of those being black boxes. I’m sure many of our readers know what a black box is from hearing about it during airplane crashes. Well, tractor trailers are now equipped with basically the same thing. Using them, we can investigate to find what regulations have been broken. What was the driver doing at the time of the wreck? Was he or she speeding? Had they been on the road far too long? An experienced lawyer will know to ask for this tool right away. Another thing to look out for are the driver’s books. Unfortunately, because drivers are often pressed to make better time and cover more ground, we find that two sets of books are kept. The first book is shown to police officers and weigh stations and the other to their bosses, showing the true hours and mileage to get paid. A good tractor trailer lawyer will know where to start digging immediately.
I just read an article called “Asleep at the Wheel: Truck Driver Fatigue.” It says that the Federal Motor Vehicle Carrier Safety Administration has found that up to 585 fatalities in one year were related to driver fatigue. This is just one of many, many statistics that are out there about tractor trailer accidents, their causes, and the industry in general. If you’ve been hurt in an accident, you obviously don’t have the time or energy to be researching, which is why it is important that your lawyer comes to the table with that information for you. I encourage people who’ve been hurt in a tractor trailer wreck to call The Segal Law Firm and ask us about our experience. If you have a question or just need more information, you can reach us at 855-344-9100.