Truck crashes, perhaps more than any other vehicle-related accident, pose a serious risk of injury to a car’s occupants. This is in large part due to the fact that commercial trucks are so much larger than standard vehicles and often transport dangerous cargo. Truck accidents also tend to cause collisions across multiple lanes of traffic and involve more than one vehicle, which is extremely dangerous for each car's occupants, who will suffer from a number of impacts rather than just one. Although they pose risks to drivers, transportation via commercial truck is crucial to the functioning of interstate commerce. For this reason, federal law regulates when truck drivers must take breaks, how cargo must be handled and loaded, and how many hours can be driven per day. Unfortunately, these regulations are sometimes overlooked or deliberately ignored, which can have devastating consequences for other drivers on the road.
What Causes Truck Accidents?
Although truck companies are required to ensure that their drivers are qualified and thoroughly vetted prior to hiring, accidents still can and do occur at an alarming rate across the state of Virginia. While mechanical failure contributes to or causes some accidents, most truck crashes are the result of one of the following factors:- Driver fatigue
- Improperly loaded or secured cargo
- Driving while distracted
- Driving while under the influence of drugs or alcohol
- Speeding or driving aggressively
Common Injuries
Because truck crashes usually involve more than one vehicle, injuries sustained in these types of accidents are usually severe. This is especially true in cases where a truck's cargo comes loose and spills onto the roadway, as trucks often transport dangerous products, such as toxic materials, lumber, and steel beams. Typical truck accident injuries include, but are not limited to, the following:- Spinal cord injuries caused by pieces of a person's vertebrae coming into contact with the bundle of nerves that connects the brain to the rest of the body
- Traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), which often involve bleeding in the brain and damaged brain tissue, both of which can cause memory loss, cognitive disability, and paralysis
- Crushed bones, which are often the result of a person being trapped beneath heavy debris, including cargo or pieces of the vehicle itself
- Burn injuries, which are sustained by victims as a result of car fires and gas tank explosions
- Organ damage and internal bleeding caused by the more forceful impacts involved in most truck crashes
