Primary causes of semi truck crashes and big rig accidents
On a September evening in 2014, a tractor-trailer going over 70 mph on an Oklahoma highway veered out of the left lane. The truck driver was neither braking nor steering as the semi-truck crossed the median. That semi-truck traveled about 1100 feet before it collided with a bus on the other side of the highway. [...]
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is tasked with investigating serious transportation accidents. On August 11, the NTSB issued their initial report on a 2014 fatal semi-truck crash that killed one man, and seriously injured several others—including actor Tracy Morgan. See background, details on the fatal truck crash Six important details from the semi-truck crash [...]
This is a “forward collision avoidance and mitigation braking” system. Volvo shows how the auto-braking system could prevent thousands of rear-end truck crashes a year When radar and sensors detect a slow-moving vehicle or stopped car ahead, the “F-CAM” system warns the truck driver. If the driver doesn’t brake, the system takes over [...]
Trucking companies must drug-test all applicants when hiring truck drivers. A driver must be tested again if he or she is involved in a truck accident crash that results in a serious injury or fatality. Those results are shared with The Department of Transportation (DOT), which regulates the trucking industry. Currently, The Department of Transportation (DOT) [...]
The images are shocking. The first collision was between a jackknifed semi-truck, and a passenger truck driven by Kaleb Whitby. His vehicle spun around and flipped upon hitting the semi-truck, and he could see another tractor-trailer coming directly at him. Saturday’s semi-truck pile-up in Eastern Oregon involved between 50 and 70 cars, according to Oregon [...]
Commercial truckers who admitted to falling asleep while driving are believed to cause more than 750 fatalities and 20,000 injuries every year. In truth, that estimate is likely quite low. It’s almost impossible to know how many truck accidents crashes sleepy truckers cause. The same is true for car accidents crashes: very few drivers admit to falling [...]
It’s illegal. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has a blanket ban on commercial drivers using a hand-held cellular phone or texting while driving. It’s unsafe. Truck drivers are 23x more likely to crash if they are texting. And a number of trucking carriers claim that texting and driving is grounds for a driver’s immediate [...]
It’s a horrible—but common—story about a truck crash. A tractor-trailer transporting goods for Walmart rear-ended a limo bus on a highway. Law enforcement's investigation shows that the truck driver had not slept for 24 hours prior to the crash, and that he failed to pay proper attention as he approached stopped traffic. One passenger was [...]
Many truck drivers operate on our highways after long hours behind the wheel without proper rest and sleep. This fact came to the forefront when the popular comedian, Tracy Morgan, was seriously injured in a crash with an 18-wheel tractor-trailer. Walmart employed the driver of the tractor-trailer. It was reported that he had been awake [...]
Today with snow all over the roadways here in the Pacific Northwest, roadway travel was limited. Those that had to go out faced conditions of icy roads, continuous snow flakes or ice rain and side roads that were difficult to navigate. Out there, crazy drivers went too fast, followed too close and tried to go [...]
