Number of Accidents Caused by Semi Trucks

Semi-trucks are all over the place. They are one of the main transporters of goods in the United States. There are thousands of semi-trucks traveling the country every day. Most truck travel in rural areas and on highways. There are about 15.5 million large trucks registered in the United States. 2 million of those trucks are semi-trucks, explains an experienced truck accident lawyer in Phoenix (https://www.azlegalfirm.com/work-accidents.html). So, the roads are jam-packed with them.

Since they carry so much in their trailers, they need to be big. The caveat to this is that they are hard to maneuver safely, which is why you would need a special license to even be able to drive one.

Number of Accidents Caused by Semi Trucks 

By there being so many trucks driving day by day and being so hard to drive, there was going to be an accident here and there. Especially, since people get into major accidents in vehicles that are smaller and much easier to control.

According to Top Class Action, as of 2019, there are more than 500,000 semi-truck accidents occurring in the United States every year. Sadly, these accidents are often resulting in very serious injuries. According to HG Legal Resources, out of the 500,000 accidents that do occur there are about only 700 semi-truck accidents result in individuals dying. 

What Causes a Semi Truck Accident? 

There is an abundance of factors that might cause a truck accident to occur. Bad weather is a major contributor to the accident count. But human error, such as careless or reckless driving, is the number one cause of accidents occurring in any vehicle. In many cases, truck drivers and their companies can be held liable for negligence or recklessness that results in accidents, injuries, and death.

Some common causes of semi-truck accidents include:

• Driver fatigue
• Improper vehicle maintenance
• Distracted driving
• Driver inexperience or lack of training
• Improper loading
• Alcohol or drug use
• High speeds
• Violation of trucking laws and regulations

Why are Accidents Caused by Semi Trucks so Dangerous? 

Semi-truck accidents are much more dangerous for the people in passenger vehicles than those in the truck. In 2017, in a study of semi-truck accidents, in situations where there was a person killed in a crash involving a single passenger vehicle and a single semi-truck, 97 percent of those killed were in the passenger vehicle.

This concluded that there is a much higher chance of a person in a passenger vehicle or pedestrian to be injured or killed in a crash like this. Especially, since the semi-trucks weigh so much. Large trucks are defined as having a gross vehicle weight rating, or GVWR, of more than 10,000 pounds. So, it is understandable why a vehicle weighing in at more than 10,000 pounds going at least 50 miles per hour could cause serious injury.

A few things make semi-trucks accidents particularly more dangerous. Semi-trucks can easily weigh more than 40 tons, and the average-sized car is only about 2.5 tons. Because of the truck’s large size and weight, it is extremely more difficult to maneuver and stop them.

The deadliest situational crash is called a rollover, this is where a truck is overturned in a crash. Truck accidents happen more often than you might think. In 2017, there were 4,237 large truck accidents involved in fatal crashes.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administrations’ Fatality Analysis Reporting System or FARS database, in 2017, we saw a total of 34,247 fatal crashes across all different types of motor vehicle accidents in the United States, while another 344,000 involving non-fatal injuries. Plus, about another 100,000 resulted in serious injuries.

The number of large truck accidents has increased substantially over the last decade. There has been about a 13 percent increase since 2010. In 2016, there were 12 fatal large truck crashes per one million people in the United States.

Can I File a Semi Truck Accident Lawsuit?

You might be in a situation, where you sadly were in a major accident with a semi-truck and want to sue. Well, there are a few factors that help to determine how much compensation a semi-truck accident lawsuit can actually provide.

The first is called liability. Though liability is seen differently from state to state. It essentially means that when there is less fault attributed to the injured party, the more compensation they receive. A jury of their peers will determine how much fault is attributed to the truck driver and their employer.

Some states require that the defendant needs to be more than 50 percent liable for the plaintiff to recover at all. Another major thing to take into account is, of course, the severity of the injuries that were suffered.

Semi-truck accident lawsuits can be filed against the truck driver, the insurance company, and trucking company for the plaintiff to ensure they receive the compensation for the injuries they insured.

So, if you believe that you are in this situation, then you should try to see what you can get by sending a lawsuit.