Odessa, Texas Truck Accidents

Are you in Odessa, Texas? Were you or your loved one injured in a truck accident?

Give Carabin Shaw a call. We can help. Call us at 800-862-1260

Why do big truck and 18 wheeler accidents happen? Frequently, it comes down to making a profit being put ahead of safety.

18 Wheelers, big rigs, and semis are especially dangerous when they get in an accident. Our Odessa truck accident attorneys have seen trucking companies again and again make the claim that they are going to revise their safety procedures and policies to make an effort to reduce the number of serious and deadly accidents. Then they go on continuing to put profits ahead of motorist and driver safety.

• Exceeding the speed limit: When truck drivers speed to meet their deadlines, they are acting recklessly and carelessly. Any attempt to move an 80,000 pound monster sized truck faster than the posted legal speed limit is never reasonable. It is often hard to slow down or stop in time when that much mass and weight is behind you.
• Heavy Excessive Payloads: If a trucker is hauling an unusually large or heavy load, then it is even harder to stop or slow down the vehicle. Heavy or excessively large loads frequently also upset the truck’s balance. Furthermore, when a heavily loaded truck does hit a car, the physical and medical damages can be much more severe and debilitating. Tanker trucks and flatbeds are well known for this kind of excessive damages, but garbage trucks dump trucks are frequently equally bad.
• Lack of Proper Maintenance: Keeping up with proper maintenance of all heavy trucks is needed if there is to be any hope of avoiding mechanical failures and faults. If a heavy truck does not get properly maintenance, even the best driver on the road has a much greater risk of causing an accident. It only takes one horrible accident to happen to determine that one element (such as the suspension system or the brakes) failed due to poor maintenance.
• Lack of Adequate Sleep: Truck drivers are only human beings. When they get sleep deprived or overworked, mistakes happen. It is a key concept to understand that many truckers get paid for each mile they drive. Thus, they want to push their own bodies to, and past, reasonable limits to get a bigger paycheck. When they are asleep, they literally lose money. Therefore, all too many truck operators actually do push themselves way too far and they end up literally falling asleep at the wheel. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) already permits truckers to drive as many as 11 straight hours at one time. Even with these liberal limits, some truck drivers are now literally lying about their driving schedules and filing false hours-of-service logs and records in order to increase their pay or please their bosses.
• Highway Hypnosis: This type of condition describes to a kind of trance-like mental state that happens after a truck driver goes over thousands of miles while watching the same unvarying road conditions and scenery. After too long at this drivers can “zone out” and literally not register small visual details which any defensive driver must notice to avoid collisions.

The laws which govern truck accident cases in Texas are quite difficult for most people to understand, and they are often frighteningly complicated. This is just one reason that it is very important for you to talk to a good lawyer about your injuries and the details of your case. Our Odessa, Texas truck accident lawyers can review the details of your case at no cost to you, and help you in your fight for each and every penny you are legally owed.

Are you in Odessa, Texas? Were you or your loved one injured in a truck accident?

Give Carabin Shaw a call. We can help. Call us at 800-862-1260