How Overworked Truck Drivers Cause Accidents
Accident & Injury Accident & Injury Car Accident Accident & Injury Wrongful Death
Summary: How unrealistic schedules put out by trucking companies lead to tired drivers, accidents and deaths.
How
Overworked Truckers and Overtime Leads to Fatal Accidents
More than ever before truck drivers
are facing demands to work overtime with little or no sleep.
They face extreme pressure to make
deliveries on a tight schedule. As you can imagine, the truck driver under
stress is struggling to stay awake behind the wheel of their massive
18-wheeler. Experienced Alabama and Mississippi area truck accident attorneys Braswell
Murphy, LLC understand that these unrealistic
schedules greatly increase the likelihood of a serious or fatal truck accident
between a big rig and a passenger vehicle. There are several reasons for this trend:
·
Fierce competition to quickly get
product across long distances.
·
Poor economy forces truck drivers to
take jobs with unrealistic deadlines.
·
Trucking companies simply put
profits over people.
Additionally, to stay awake, many
truck drivers use both legal and illegal stimulants such as caffeine,
ephedrine, cocaine, and methamphetamines. This can result in poor judgment,
impaired vision and a delayed reaction leading to a serious or fatal truck
accident. Serious truck accidents involving an 18-wheeler and a car or SUV are
more likely to lead to serious injury or death for drivers and passengers of cars.
Proving
Liability for Truck Accidents
Determining the liability in truck
accidents caused by unrealistic schedules can be a difficult task. The truck
accident personal injury attorneys at Braswell Murphy, LLC will help build your case by obtaining:
- Truck driver driving logs (and any sign of falsified
driving logs)
- Meal and ATM receipts
- Gas/fuel records
- Hours of operation (as permitted by federal
regulations)
- Cell phone records
- Satellite information taken from on-board computer
systems
Above all, where an accident with an
18-wheeler occurs, causing serious harm to you or to loved ones, locating and
retaining an experienced lawyer qualified to handle such cases is crucial to
getting the result, and to compensating you for harm caused to you. Braswell
Murphy has extensive experience litigating against 18-wheeler companies. Attorney Kasie Braswell achieved one of the
largest verdicts to ever be awarded against a trucking company on the
Mississippi Coast. She also achieved an
unheard of arbitration award against a trucking company (in excess of
$2,300,000.00) in a case where a Mobile, Alabama man was rear-ended by an
18-wheeler on a Mississippi interstate.
If you have been involved in an
accident with an 18-wheeler or a commercial truck, time is of the essence. Most trucking companies dispatch lawyers,
investigators and other members of their “cleanup crew” as soon as they are
notified of an accident (trucking company lawyers and investigators often arrive
at accident scenes before the injured people are even out of the
hospital). This is why it is very
important to contact a lawyer as soon as possible – you need to ensure that
your rights (and the evidence) are protected.
If
you have been involved in an accident with an 18-wheeler or a commercial truck,
please contact Braswell Murphy as soon as possible at 800-554-9290. If the accident occurs after hours or over
the weekend, attorney Kasie Braswell welcomes calls to her cell phone at (251)
942-9486. Don’t wait to contact a lawyer
– you can bet the trucking company already has.