The main causes of truck accidents are from:

• Distracted driving: Distracted driving does not mean just not paying attention, it means that the truck driver is looking down at a phone, texting, looking at instructions from company dispatch and otherwise not keeping their eyes on the road.
• Fatigued driving: Many truck drivers must make on-time deliveries. If they deliver late, they pay huge fines, lose salary, are reprimanded, suspended and fired. This makes truck drivers drive when they are too tired to drive and violate their maximum daily or weekly hours which causes severe truck accidents.
• Speeding truck drivers: Truck drivers who are late for a delivery drive over their legal hours at speeds way too fast for safety. The massive size of the tractor-trailer makes it a deathtrap on wheels. Speeding increases stopping distance and the force and severity of the impact.
• Drunk Driving: Whether the truck driver is drunk , stoned or on methamphetamine, they are a danger to all drivers on the road. Some of the intoxicated truck drivers will cause massive chain reaction accidents with 5 or more cars in a row.
• Lack of a Safety Plan: All truck drivers and motor carriers must have a safety plan and follow it to prevent accidents. The majority of smaller and medium size trucking companies never bother to create a safety plan and their drivers cause mayhem on the roads.
• Preventability Studies Crashes After Accidents: The concept of preventability means that the safe trucking companies will study each accident after the crash to figure out the cause of the accident to help prevent future crashes. Unfortunately, of the trucking companies we have sued very few follow this safety rule.
• Negligent Hiring, Training & Supervision: Many car accident lawyers treat a large truck accident case like an ordinary car accident case only bringing negligence claims against the driver. Real truck accident attorneys like Bull Attorneys, understand that better trucking companies use HireRight to help reduce trucking accidents caused by the negligent hiring, training, and supervision of bad truck drivers.

Injuries suffered in a large truck accident are usually severe and often lead to wrongful death claims . We have represented families of truck drivers involved in high-speed crashes where the truck driver or occupants of a car or truck were burned alive. Our Kansas 18 wheeler accident lawyers are excellent at proving conscious pain and suffering prior to death.

Our Wichita Truck Accident Lawyers look for every cause of action against the truck driver and trucking company. It is almost always a combination of multiple negligent acts by the driver, hiring personnel and their supervising dispatch and safety officers. Finding more causes of a truck accident usually allows us to get a much higher settlement for our truck accident injury clients.

The principle of preventability helps our truck accident lawyers explore how trucking companies can reduce accidents. Preventability of tractor-trailer accidents is key to prevention of future semi-truck accidents. Was this accident preventable? Most truck accidents are preventable. If trucking company management would properly study preventability thousands fewer people would be injured or killed each year.

Our Wichita truck accident injury attorneys give free consultations to truck accident victims 24 hours a day, seven days of the week and even on weekends and holidays. Call us at 316-684-4400 or write on our contact page.

How Regulatory Law Impacts Your Trucking Case

The FMCSR regulations are written rules for truck drivers and under Part 390.3(e)(1) & (2), this very special law mandates that every driver and employee should understand and follow all applicable regulations contained in the FMCSR. Motor carriers include for-hire motor carriers or private motor carriers, inclusive of a motor carrier's agents, officers, and representatives who are involved in hiring, supervising, training, assigning, or dispatching drivers.

Federal law under 49 U.S.C. § 14704(a)(2) dictates that a motor carrier is accountable for any damages sustained by a person resulting from an action or omission of that carrier in violation of these regulations. Thus, 49 U.S.C. § 14101(a) requires a motor carrier to ensure safe and adequate service, equipment, and facilities.

Typically, construction equipment and heavy equipment weighing 10,001 pounds must follow DOT regulations and understand and follow the FMCSR. Vehicles transporting between 9 and 15 passengers must also comply with the FMCSR.

After a severe semi accident, it is important that you hire the best truck accident lawyer you can find. Your truck accident lawyer must prove negligence of the truck driver or their motor carrier or both. For you to have a great chance of a large money award it is important that you only hire a highly experienced truck accident lawyer trained in trucking principles, regulations, and laws.

Understanding the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSR)

Accidents, injuries, and wrongful deaths often occur due to truck drivers lacking adequate training and having little knowledge of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSR).

When you have a truck accident severe injury and go to a regular car accident attorney you not only get a lawyer who does not understand trucking law, you also get a lawyer who is too lazy to study the law and safety regulations. If you do not have a trucking lawyer you risk getting much less than your true case value and worth.

One of the main ways to prove the truck driver or trucking company is at fault is by proving the truck driver is untrained and improperly supervised. If his employer did not train him/her in proper safe driving and defensive driving techniques through the Smith System or some other training method, the driver is likely to cause bad truck accidents.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), a part of the Federal Highway Administration (FHA), was established in January 2000. Its primary goal is to greatly improve safety on the nation's highways and reduce truck accidents and fatalities.

At Bull Attorneys, our Wichita truck accident lawyers don't merely claim expertise—we demonstrate it by tirelessly battling against the nation's largest trucking companies and their insurance companies. We have a dedicated commitment to your case and every truck accident injury case gets specially managed by our team of trained trucking accident law professionals.

After years of taking suing trucking companies and taking depositions of truck drivers, Safety Directors, and Vice Presidents of Safety in large trucking companies we found there is a truly clear learned method to winning truck accident injury cases. Our Wichita truck accident lawyers were trained by the top truck accident lawyers in Kansas and the Midwest.

The Role of Required Knowledge for Truck Drivers in Wichita, Kansas

Truck drivers must have the required knowledge to understand the proper use of safety devices like lights, horns, mirrors on the tractor-trailer, and emergency procedures. They must know basic control procedures, such as setting the vehicle in motion, stopping, backing in a straight line, turning the vehicle appropriately, and shifting gears. Likewise, an experienced truck accident lawyer must know the same thing as the driver.

Poor Maintenance Increases the Risk of Truck Accidents.

Many truck accident lawyers do not understand the importance of maintenance inspections and repairs. Part 396.3(a) requires every motor carrier to systematically inspect, repair, and maintain their commercial motor vehicle. They must have safe and properly working tires, brakes, and safety equipment.

Truck drivers must do daily inspections of their tractor-trailer before they leave, if they stop during the day and at the end of the day. Truck drivers who are tired and exhausted rarely follow this rule which causes truck accidents for poorly maintained tractor-trailers.

Part 396.7 prohibits truck drivers or their company from operating the tractor-trailer when it is in a condition likely to cause an accident or a breakdown of the vehicle.

Driver vehicle inspection reports under Part 396.11 requires all truck drivers to write down all daily inspections.

Poorly maintained trucks with bad equipment cause a tremendous amount of lost life across the United States each year. These needless accidents can be reduced simply by making sure the tractor-trailer is always in a safe condition.

Improperly maintained brake systems on tractor-trailers is a leading cause of rear end crashes. The Large Truck Crash Causation Study – Analysis Brief found that a large truck with brake problems was at least 170 percent more likely to cause a truck accident.

Understanding Hazard Perception.

Many trucking companies and their drivers violate the rule on extreme driving conditions under Part 392.14. Truck drivers must reduce speed when driving in hazardous conditions, such as bad weather like snow, ice, sleet, high wind, fog, and smoke. When the weather conditions become sufficiently dangerous the truck driver must discontinue operations of the tractor-trailer until the dangerous conditions are over.

In Wichita, Garden City, and across Kansas horrific semi-truck accidents happen because of high wind conditions. At Bull Attorneys we routinely handle head-on collisions where tractor-trailers and business trucks are blown over the center line by high winds approaching 60 mph and above.

On December 15, 2021, many high wind large truck crashes happened with tractor-trailers in Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Colorado. This is because the reckless truck drivers failed to heed all bad weather and high wind reports.

Truck drivers and the trucking companies must pay great attention to bad weather and high wind conditions when they are given weather warnings. They should stop all drivers from moving until the storms are over.

The commercial motor vehicle operator, including the trucking company and the driver, must understand night operations, which include problems with vision, glare, fatigue, and inexperience. Truck drivers must be trained on how night time operation of a tractor-trailer affects space management, vision and proper use of lights to avoid large truck crashes.

All truck drivers must understand hazard perception, emergency maneuvers, skid control and recovery, the relationship of the weight of their cargo to vehicle control, and principles of weight distribution and cargo securement. When truck drivers are not properly trained in the recognition of hazards, called hazard perception, they are more likely to cause severe truck accidents. Hazard perception training helps truck drivers identify and respond to dangers on the roadways.

Most of the truck accident claims that the Bull Attorneys handle involve poorly trained truck drivers who were never provided any proper safe driving techniques. They are not taught about safety and their employers never test and assess them to see if they understand anything about hazard perception and avoidance.

Truck drivers must understand and be trained about the weight of their load and why air brakes must be used properly. Heavier loads take much longer to stop. When a tractor-trailer is heavy and speeding with poor brakes it is highly likely they will cause severe truck accidents.

Truck drivers that drive combination vehicles with more than one trailer must be trained about the hazards related to coupling and uncoupling, as well as vehicle inspection, which are unique to combination vehicles. The added length and weight can be extremely destructive and hazardous to all cars and pickup around the large heavy tractor-trailer combination.

The Bull Attorneys Have Concentrated On Commercial Trucking and Large Truck Accidents and know to read, interpret and understand Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulation.