The most common causes of truck accidents in Oklahoma include driver fatigue, distracted driving, speeding, improperly loaded cargo, and poor vehicle maintenance. While each crash is different at the end of the day, the majority of them can be traced back to some form of negligence on the part of the truck driver, the trucking company, or both.
If you’ve been involved in one of these collisions, determining what caused it is an important step toward holding the right parties liable.
Driver Fatigue
Driver fatigue is one of the leading contributors to truck accidents in Tulsa and across the country. The FMCSA imposes strict hours-of-service rules that limit how long a driver can operate without rest, but not every driver or carrier follows them.
Long hours behind the wheel lead to slower reaction times, impaired judgment, and in some cases, drivers falling asleep at the wheel entirely. In circumstances where a trucking company pressures its drivers to meet tight delivery windows, it creates conditions where fatigue-related crashes become far more likely.
Distracted Driving
Things like cell phone use, GPS adjustments, eating behind the wheel, and paperwork can all pull a truck driver’s attention away from the road. At highway speeds, a fully loaded tractor-trailer covers a massive amount of ground in just a few seconds of inattention. That’s often all it takes for a devastating distracted driving accident to occur.
Speeding and Aggressive Driving
Commercial trucks need significantly more time and distance to come to a stop than passenger vehicles. Those stopping distances become even longer when a truck driver exceeds the posted speed limit and when they drive too aggressively for the given conditions.
Tailgating and unsafe lane changes are a couple of examples of behaviors that put everyone else on the road at serious risk in this context.
Improperly Loaded Cargo
How a truck’s cargo is loaded matters just as much as how the truck is driven. Freight that is overweight, unevenly distributed, or poorly secured can shift during transit and throw off the vehicle’s balance. This can, in turn, lead to severely devastating kinds of crashes like rollover accidents and jackknife crashes.
Poor Vehicle Maintenance
Commercial trucks endure enormous wear and tear on a daily basis, particularly for components like brakes and tires. Brake failure alone is a factor in a significant percentage of fatal truck crashes nationwide, but any type of mechanical issue has the potential to result in a serious accident.
Contact a Truck Accident Lawyer From Gorospe Law Group for a Free Consultation
If you’ve been injured in a truck accident in Oklahoma, the cause of the crash can directly impact who is liable and how much compensation is available to you. An experienced truck accident attorney with Gorosope Law Group can investigate the facts and circumstances of your case and help you move toward a maximum financial recovery from there.
Contact us today at (918) 771-9458 to schedule a free consultation and get started with your case. Since we work on a contingency fee basis, you won’t pay us a cent in terms of attorney’s fees unless we win compensation for you.