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Maryland Truck Accident Lawyers
The Maryland truck accident lawyers at Miller & Zois handle
large truck and tractor-trailer personal injury cases in the Baltimore-Washington
area and around the county. If you have been injured in a truck
accident, our lawyers can help you.
Remarkably, there are more than three
accidents a minute where an American is injured or killed in a
truck accident. Thousands of people in Maryland are hurt or lose
their lives in truck accidents involving tractor-trailers, semi
trucks, eighteen wheelers, big rigs, semi trucks, and other large
commercial vehicles. Truck accidents are so serious because if
a truck driver makes a mistake virtually impossible to correct
because of the mass and size of a truck. A single error by a truck
driver driving a tractor trailor, semi truck, or 18 wheeler can
have tragic results. Many of these accidents in Maryland occur
on our most frequents highways, Route
95, I-83, Route 70, the Baltimore
Beltway (Route 695), Washington Beltway (Route 495) and the
Baltimore Washington Parkway (Route 295). Compounding the inherient
risk of these large trucks, poor driving, overworked drivers that
are being paid for speed, oversized truck loads and other unsafe
practices in which truck drivers frequently engage increase the
risk involved in operating these heavy trucks that weight up to
80,000 pounds. To put that in context, (the average passenger
car weights approximately 3,000 pounds.
Handling Truck Accident Cases in Maryland
Many Maryland accident lawyers approach
truck accident cases like any other motor vehicle accident case.
But not only are the vehicles different, Maryland has specific
laws designed largely to help accident victims of truck accidents.
Accordingly, a truck accident lawyer in Maryland must have great
familiarity with the finer details of Maryland's commercial vehicle
law dealing with big rig trucks. The truck driver may have violated
a specific statute or regulation with respect to the freight he
was carrying or how long he had been driving before the accident.
As discussed above, a remarkable number of trucks accidents occur
because of the fatigue of the truck driver who is paid to get
as far as he can as fast as he can.
In addition to these legal considerations,
when our lawyers investigate truck accident cases, we consider
these factors and other details specific to truck accidents because
there are always additional things lawyers must consider in truck
accident cases. For example, most big rig trucks maintain "black
boxes" that measure various parameters that can assist
the truck accident lawyer in Maryland in determining how the truck
accident occurred. Also, because there is extensive federal regulation
applicable to the trucking industry, there are also intricate
regulations covering the use and maintenance of commercial trucks.
This gives plaintiffs' truck accident lawyers in Maryland a treasure
trove of information about the truck driver and his vehicle that
is typically not available in passenger car accident cases. This
is a real advantage to attorneys in truck accident cases representing
injured victims.
A lawyer handling truck accident cases
in Maryland must also consider whether the company that hired
the driver may also be responsible under the theory of negligent
entrustment or negligent
supervision if they failed to properly screen the truck driver
before the accident or if they failed to properly train the truck
driver. You would be amazed at how many operators of trucks, particularly
big rig trucks, are improperly trained or have unacceptable driving
records. There can also be a claim for negligent maintenance,
a related legal theory lawyers pursue in truck accident cases
when the company and/or truck driver failed to properly maintain
the truck.
In these truck accidents, 97% of fatal
truck accidents are victims in passenger cars or trucks, not at-fault
driver of the commercial truck. But trucking industry is a $600
billion dollar business and these companies have many qualified
truck accident lawyers in Maryland at their disposal to vigorously
fight accident claims from injured victims. Our auto and truck accident
lawyers have the experience and reputation to stand up to these
companies to get fair compensation for our clients who have been
injured in a truck accident. Our Maryland
truck accident lawyers have learned what logbooks, receipts
and other crucial evidence our lawyers must find to find the evidence
to bring about a just result. If you have been injured or have
lost a loved one in a truck accident in Maryland or anywhere else
in the United States, call Miller & Zois at 800-553-8082 or
select here to submit your case via our online
form.
Causes of Truck Accidents in Maryland
The are four main specific risks that
cause truck accidents that are not typically present with passenger
cars. The first is simply that big trucks have a difficult time
stopping, which leads to a great number of rear-end accidents.
The second is jackknifing
where a large truck such as a semi or an eighteen-wheeler comes
to a sudden stop and the load shifts. This sudden shift causes
the trailer to come around and go sideways. This can lead to the
trailer actually flipping and rolling. Jackknifing can occur at
speeds as low as five miles per hour. Some trucks are more likely
to jackknife. For example, a half empty tanker is more than twice
as likely to be involved in a jackknifing truck accident than
a fully loaded semi (which is also at great risk for jackknifing).
Invariably, the defendant's truck accident
lawyers claim that the truck jackknifed because the road was slippery
or the truck was required to make an emergency stop, often claiming
a phantom vehicle caused the accident. Usually, after our Maryland
truck accident lawyers have made a full investigation (often with
the help of an expert accident
reconstructionist), we find that there is no evidence of slippery
road conditions or a phantom vehicle that caused the truck accident.
The third problem that our attorneys
find causes many Maryland truck accidents is the difficulties
truck drivers have in turning these long big rig trucks. It is
often necessary for the driver of a big rig truck to use more
than one lane of traffic in making a right turn in order to avoid
the rear wheels hitting parked vehicles or the sidewalk. When
these big rig truck drivers swing wide to complete a right turn,
they often cause accidents with unsuspecting automobiles.
The Federal Highway Administration's
Driver Fatigue and Alertness Study underscored how fatigue exacerbates
these problems that cause truck accidents. The study showed that
while most people require 7.5 to 8 hours of sleep a day, the average
truck driver gets 4.8 hours of sleep, hardly enough to remain
alert to avoid a truck accident. On top of this, the National
Transportation Safety Board and The National Institute on Drug
Abuse found in a study that of 168 fatally injured truck drivers,
one or more drugs was detected in 67% of these fatally injured
truck drivers and 33% of these truck drivers had detectable blood
concentrations of psychoactive drugs or alcohol. When you combine
the difficulties of driving a big truck with the incidence of
fatigue and substance abuse, it is amazing that we do not have
more fatal truck accidents in this country.
Finally, large big rig trucks are simply
more difficult to stop. The heavier the truck, the greater the
distance required to stop to avoid a rear end truck accident.
When truck drivers - or the passanger cars that surround them
- fail to fully appreciate the distance needed to stop the truck,
the risk of a rear-end truck collision increases dramatically.
Also, the difficulty in maneuvering large trucks also create more
rear end accidents in addition to the wide right turn accidents
discussed above. Rear-end truck crashes in Maryland occur more
frequently on divided roads because the truck driver has less
options to maneuver the truck to avoid the crash (an estimated
45% according to one study on truck accidents as opposed to 32%
of truck crashes that were not rear-end accidents).
Rear end truck accidents in Maryland
are far more likely to also involve multiple vehicles. The size,
weight, and difficulty in maneuvering trucks often leads to other
vehicles being brought into the accident. The formation of truck
convoys, which truckers often form on long trips, also contributes
to the large number of multi-vehicle rear end truck accidents.
If you have been involved in a truck
collision, call our Maryland truck accident attorneys at 1-800-553-8082
or click here
for a free web consultation.
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