Texas roads and highways are filled with large, heavy 18-wheeler trucks. News from around the state offers daily accounts of serious truck accidents in Texas. Deer Park personal injury lawyers know that a frightening percentage of these truck accidents in Texas result from driver fatigue.
Truck drivers, and even ordinary passenger car drivers, tend to experience a phenomenon called “highway hypnosis” after long hours behind the wheel. Drivers fall into a trance-like state from their long periods of relative immobility and lack of real stimuli on long drives. It’s a short step from highway hypnosis to briefly dozing off at the wheel.
Trucks are heavy vehicles with immense power and momentum. Even the briefest doze can cause a fatal accident when the truck drifts off course. Even if the driver wakes up almost immediately, getting the truck back on course can take more time and effort than the driver has to avoid an impending truck wreck caused by driver fatigue.
Pretty soon, we’ll have even more trucks on our roads. Texas borders open to cargo trucks from Mexico in September. The drivers of these trucks may well be experiencing some fatigue by the time you encounter them. Just waiting in line at our border crossings can be a wearying experience.
There’s probably nothing that the ordinary car driver can do to prevent trucker fatigue or the truck accidents in Texas that result from it. But when you’ve been injured in a truck wreck caused by driver fatigue, you should make every effort to hold those who caused it legally accountable for their actions. Only then will truckers and the trucking companies that spur them on have real incentive to abide by laws regulating the number of hours that they can be on the roads without adequate rest breaks.
Your legal claim might name both the truck driver and the trucking company that employed him. The trucking company might well have caused the driver fatigue with unrealistic delivery demands. Our experienced Deer Park personal injury lawyers may prove invaluable to you in making a successful claim. We have years of experience handling truck wrecks against trucking companies both large and small.
When you need help, give us a call at (877) 307-9500 for your free legal consultation. We’ll answer pressing questions you may have about your truck wreck caused by driver fatigue. We can help you understand your legal options, and also the potential challenges you face in making a valid claim for compensation.