Speeding Truck Accidents

Trucks that travel the speed limit are a danger to other motorists on the road. Because trucks are large and powerful, other passenger cars and the occupants of these cars risk traumatic brain injuries, crushing injuries, amputation or loss of limb injuries, and other life-altering consequences. Commercial drivers behind the wheel of a truck who choose to speed or drive too fast considering the prevailing road conditions that they face only increase the risk of causing significant injuries and the likelihood that they will cause a crash. Truck accidents caused by a speeding truck will also subject the truck driver – and his or her employer – to potential civil liability.

Reasons for Speeding Truck Accidents

On the one hand, there is no excuse for truckers to speed. Before a truck will exceed the speed limit in nearly every case, the truck driver must have made a conscious decision to press the accelerator of the truck and increase power to the engine and, by extension, increase the truck’s speed.

However, depending on the facts and circumstances of a particular case, saying that a trucker was speeding simply because he or she chose to do so may not tell the whole story:

• Incentives and deadlines. The trucker may have been speeding because his or her company or the company that owned the freight he or she was hauling may have incentivized speeding. If a company or other individual imposed too strict of a deadline or promised a financial bonus if the trucker was able to deliver his or her cargo ahead of schedule, then this company or individual may be partly to blame for any speeding crash. While this does not absolve the trucker from all responsibility – after all, the trucker still made a conscious decision to speed in order to avoid the deadline or obtain the incentive – this can suggest that more individuals that just the trucker need to be made party to a speeding truck crash lawsuit.
• Faulty equipment. Alternatively, in a few situations the trucker may not realize he or she is speeding due to defective equipment. The speedometer may be broken, or the tires on the truck may cause the speedometer reading to be off by several miles per hour. This would not excuse excessive speeding – there is an easily-detectable difference between traveling 50 miles per hour and traveling 70 miles per hour, for instance – but it might explain in part why a truck would be traveling a few miles above the limit. This, again, may not release the truck driver from liability – if the truck driver has known for some time that his or her speedometer is broken and has failed to take corrective measures, or if the trucker knew that larger tires than normal were put on his or her truck, he or she may still be liable for a speeding accident. However, mechanics who failed to fix a speedometer known to be defective or who replace tires on a truck with larger tires may be responsible too (as may the company that employs the mechanics).

Proving Speed in a Speeding Truck Accident

Speeding is almost always considered careless and negligent behavior, but a victim injured in a speeding truck accident must first prove that the truck was speeding. Witness observations are not conclusive here – a witness can tell whether a truck appeared to be traveling fast but is ill-equipped to say with any authority how fast the truck was traveling. Additionally, it is rare for a police officer or law enforcement officer to be present near the scene of a crash before it happens and to have clocked a truck’s speed using radar. So how does an injury victim prove the speed at which a truck was traveling? By using computers.

Inside most every commercial vehicle is a “black box” that records important data about the truck in the moments prior to a crash. This information includes not only the speed of the truck in the few seconds before a collision but also whether the brakes of the truck were applied. Injury victims who get ahold of the data from this black box find themselves in a much stronger position to argue for compensation. However, the black box and data can be easily lost in the shuffle of papers and evidence that occurs following a speeding truck crash.

For this reason, individuals injured in a speeding truck crash should retain competent and aggressive counsel like truck accident attorney Ken Stern of Stern Law, PLLC. He knows the importance of the truck’s black box in proving speed and will quickly take the appropriate steps to preserve this and other evidence and witnesses necessary to prove your speeding truck accident case. Call Stern Law, PLLC today at (844) 808-7529 for help. Attorney Ken Stern believes victims of speeding truck crashes should be able to focus on their recovery without worrying about how they will pay for their bills and cover expenses, and he will fight to ensure the speeding trucker that hit you or your loved one is accountable for his or her decision to speed.