From time to time, I get angry emails and phone call from truckers or their families. They usually call us after the airing of our commercials regarding dangerous truck drivers and the devastating injuries they cause.
Truckers want me to know that the majority of crashes on the roadway are private vehicle crashes. They also want me to know that in the majority of crashes that involve commercial trucks, the truck driver is not the at-fault driver. So, in an effort to provide you with full disclosure, there you go. Those statements are in fact true.
However, the statistics concerning those injured and killed by negligent truck driving is compelling. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that there are around 400,000 large trucks crashes ever year. But, different than regular car wrecks, injuries associated with these big truck crashes cause significantly higher rates of injury and death than accidents involving smaller vehicles. Truck crashes in the US are responsible for around 140,000 injuries annually. The NHTSA also reports that while only about 700 occupants of big trucks die each year due to the negligent driving of these trucks, around 5,000 individuals outside of these trucks (including pedestrians and occupants of the vehicle that get wrecked by the trucks) die each year.
CONCLUSION:
While many trucking operations are safe and certainly many truckers have clean driving records, as an industry, it's hard to argue against the government's own numbers about the devastation caused by big truck crashes. If you have been injured in a crash with a truck driver, please call (303) 782-9999 and speak with one of our experienced personal injury attorneys today.
