A recent spate of deadly collisions and crashes involving trucks in America has drawn attention to the problem of truck safety. Drowsy, over-fatigued drivers getting behind wheels on too few hours of rest and sleep is a national problem. The accident that severely injured comedian and actor Tracy Morgan early this year is just another example of the horrific consequences when a truck driver does not manage his sleep wisely putting everyone else at risk.
Laws are in place to prevent tuck accidents like this. Some people believe trucks should be driven with computers to increase productivity and safety simultaneously.
Truck accidents worse than others
Scientists have been studying the effects of sleep deprivation on drivers. Truck driving accident lawyers say that until now the focus was generally on substance abuse and drivers with high BAC or who were caught driving under the influence of other substances that can cause an error in judgment and impair cognition would always take the cake. But the National Transport Safety Board has been investigating the recent accidents and has come up with a conclusion that commercial vehicles driving heavy trucks in a sleep deprived state are just as harmful as drivers in an inebriated state.
The study has shown that in many cases sleep deprived truck drivers have driven right into vehicles that they could or should have seen clearly, but in their impaired state they could not make the right decision to put on the brakes at the right time to stop the vehicle before an accident happened.
Accidents involving tired truckers have also been shown to have caused a larger number of deaths and severe injuries. This is mainly due to the hulking rigs that weigh thousands of pounds that are attached to these trucks, which have the potential to cause much more harm than a normal crash.
Sleepy drivers often the cause of death
A case in point is the 2010 Ohio crash where a tractor-trailer driven by a tried trucker failed to slow down in time and ended up ramming a vehicle that was carrying a woman and her two sons into another semi-truck. While the woman, Susan Palmer Slattery, 47, died at the scene from the injuries she received, her 12 year old son Matthew was left with a traumatic brain injury when his skull was crushed in the accident. Slattery’s other son, 16 year old Peter sustained a broken pelvis and eye socket injury in the crash.
Dough Bouch, the 30 year old truck driver who caused the crash, escaped the scene unharmed. When he was interviewed by Ohio State Patrol officers, he confessed to having dozed off at the wheel while driving down a hill and when he finally did open his eyes he had absolutely no way of swerving or stopping before he ended up hitting Slattery’s car.
Truck accident attorneys are alarmed
The number of fatal crashes involving large trucks across the states has gone up from 1.03 per 100 million in 2009 to 1.29 in 2012. Just last year, more than 700 commercial drivers were involved in fatal accidents while in the line of work. This has caused people to tag the job of ‘commercial driving’ as the deadliest line of work in the country right now. But the truck drivers themselves are safe, it other folks who are in danger. The economy is not that rosy, perhaps they are trying to make ends meet.
