Jacksonville Heavy Truck Litigation Attorneys

Heavy Truck Litigation Means a Second Look At Truck Safety

You see them all the time. Log trucks traveling north and south on I-95 passing into Nassau County and beyond. And occasionally we hear about accidents involving log trucks. If you are traveling near one, be sure to get out of the way just in case one of those heavy logs decides to break loose from the pack. While being hit by a log from a truck would be the most common type of injury from a log truck, we have heard of others that bring up the issue of a defective vehicle, in this case the heavy truck.

In one case, a log truck driver had his wheels slightly off the right or passenger side of the road. When he tried to ease back onto the road, his log truck flipped to the right or passenger side. When that happened, some of the logs slid forward. In the process, the piece of metal called the "cab guard" was hit. That is the protective piece of metal but it was no match for the logs pressing against the back of the cab. The cab guard crushed in as the logs stuck three feet into the truck’s cab, killing the driver. In a case like this, the cab guard, which is supposed to protect the driver, was defective.

When the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) looked at injuries within heavy truck cabs, it found that defects to the cab roof and seat belts put occupants in danger of ejection and rollovers. Obviously the best way to save lives of those who drive and ride in trucks is to make the cab structurally sound and to keep people safe within the cab if there is an accident. But you might not know that heavy truck crashworthiness and the cab’s roof strength, is not regulated in the same way as autos, that is, by the standards within the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.

Trucks made in the U.S. have thin aluminum and fiberglass roofs. Trucks made overseas must follow the standards of that country, for example, the Swedish standards for roof strength. When American truck makers undertook a look at crashworthiness in the late 90s, the Society of Automotive Engineers recommended tests on the strength of heavy truck cabs, but those tests do not replicate a real world situation, leaving drivers of heavy trucks of 18-wheelers basically unprotected in the event of a wreck. With the cab collapsing around them, the dangers increase for traumatic head injury or ejection from the cab which are both difficult if not impossible to survive.

The Jacksonville heavy truck accident lawyers at Farah and Farah believe that this is an emerging area of the law and that defective product or product liability litigation can often be the cause of injury or death to a heavy truck driver, especially in a one-vehicle accident.

For a free evaluation of your case, call our Jacksonville office today at 1.800.642.8275