Trucking Accidents and Pressure for Speed

The trucking industry is highly competitive.  The basic idea is to get the most freight from point A to point B with the lowest cost.  Some carriers might be tempted to overload their trucks and put pressure on their drivers to get that freight to its destination in the lowest amount of time.  One way to get the freight there in the shortest amount of time might be to penalize slow drivers or to give bonuses to fast drivers.  This kind of pressure can result in truck accidents.  Truck collisions usually result in serious personal injury such as spinal cord injuries, paralysis, broken bones and even wrongful death. The trucking industry knows this is true and therefore regulations exist to prevent this kind of pressure being exerted on the drivers to take short cuts or to drive too fast or to drive for too long.  The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSR) address this very issue. The appropriate regulation is set out below.

392.6 Schedules to conform with speed limits. No motor carrier shall schedule a run nor permit nor require the operation of any commercial motor vehicle between points in such period of time as would necessitate the commercial motor vehicle being operated at speeds greater than those prescribed by the jurisdictions in or through which the commercial motor vehicle is being operated.

When we are hired by a Hoosier family which has suffered serious personal injury because of a semi tractor-trailer accident, we require the motor carrier to provide us their records which address the  carrier’s use of incentives and the scheduling of deliveries to ensure that the carrier is not violating this provision.  If they are violating this provision, or any other provision of the FMCSRs this is strong evidence of the carriers responsibility for causing the collision that injured our client. 

If you, a loved one or a friend has been injured as a result of a semi tractor trailer crash, please call us.  We can help.