Truck accidents kill more people than car accidents every year. The reason is pretty obvious; trucks are one of the biggest vehicles on the road.
Oftentimes, truck accidents lead to severe injuries and fatalities. Truck accidents are an unfortunate reality on US highways and roads. These crashes often have devastating effects on the victims as well as their family members. The biggest reason for this is the size of these semi-trucks. Semi-trucks weigh a lot more than many people would assume. This makes it difficult for such vehicles to glide smoothly and safely through traffic, particularly during sharp turns and at high speeds.
Unfortunately, collisions involving semi-trucks often result in catastrophic damage to smaller passenger vehicles. If you are an accident victim, or a friend or relative of someone killed or injured by a truck in Macon, make sure that you have an experienced Macon truck accident attorney to handle your case.
This article will tell you why truck accidents are fatal for people and what you can do about it.
Large trucks weigh up to 30 times more than the average passenger vehicle.
We’ve already touched on the fact that truck accidents tend to be more severe than car crashes because of the heavier weight of trucks. But why is this the case? To start, let’s take a look at how much weight each vehicle is carrying (on average):
- The average passenger vehicle weighs about 4,000 lbs.
- The average large truck weighs up to 30 times more than the average passenger vehicle. That means a big rig can weigh anywhere from 20,000 lbs all the way up to 90,000 lbs!
Trucks are longer and taller, and their immense weight makes stopping slowly and safely very difficult.
Trucks are longer and taller, which means they take longer to stop and cannot brake safely in wet or icy conditions. This can result in a truck jackknifing or skidding out of control, making it more likely that the driver will lose control of the vehicle and cause an accident.
When a truck driver is involved in an accident, usually the truck driver is injured or killed.
Image from Pixabay
When a truck driver is involved in an accident, usually the truck driver is injured or killed. This happens because trucks have a lower center of gravity than passenger vehicles. The difference between the height of the bumpers on cars and trucks can be as much as six inches. In addition, most heavy equipment has no airbags or seat belts to protect its drivers during accidents.
Truck drivers also tend to drive longer hours than other drivers because they need to make more money to support their families. A recent study found that more than half of all accidents involving trucks occur between midnight and 5:00 AM (the small hours).
Head-on collisions are more likely to be fatal for passenger car occupants.
It’s a fact that head-on collisions are the most dangerous and deadly type of truck accident. According to FMCSA data, they cause more fatalities than any other accident involving trucks.
Head-on collisions are also responsible for the majority of serious injuries in trucking accidents. Since passenger cars have much smaller front ends than heavy trucks, they have less room to absorb impact energy before it reaches their occupants’ bodies. This means that head-on collisions can cause more severe trauma than an accident with a larger vehicle would inflict upon its occupants by hitting them from behind or at an angle (offset crashes). When this happens, passenger car drivers often suffer devastating injuries such as spinal cord damage and traumatic brain injury (TBI) that can lead to permanent disability or death even after immediate medical attention is given.
Rollovers of large trucks can result in death or severe injury to other road users who happen to be nearby.
Large trucks are the most fatal vehicles on our roadways. They are also among the most difficult to control, which is why crashes involving them often result in fatalities. When a heavy truck overturns or rolls over, it is easy for the vehicle’s occupants to become trapped inside and suffer serious injuries or die from asphyxiation. A number of factors contribute to these types of accidents:
- Overcorrecting the steering wheel during turns can result in a rollover if there is not enough space to recover before hitting another object or person on the road. This happens when drivers are inexperienced with driving large trucks, or they drive too fast and lose control over their vehicles due to unfamiliarity with their size and weight distribution when compared with smaller cars and trucks that many drivers have experience driving at lower speeds where maneuverability is more easily attained through slight adjustments made by hand rather than foot movement alone (or both).
- Drivers may overload their own trailers with cargo that not only weigh too much but also makes them unstable while moving down highways while passing other cars–particularly those driven by inexperienced drivers who don’t know what kind of damage could occur if someone hits an overloaded trailer head-on at high speeds! And even experienced drivers can make mistakes when it comes time for them begin backing up into tight spaces such as parking lots where there isn’t enough room between parked cars for reversing action without requiring multiple tries before finding success–which might mean hitting another vehicle since space isn’t necessarily limited unless we’re talking about those rare occasions where someone’s car breaks down under one very specific circumstance: when no one else around has any sympathy for anyone else’s problems whatsoever!
The higher a truck is loaded above its height, the greater the risk that it will overturn as it turns.
One of the most dangerous hazards associated with truck accidents is overturning. Trucks are often loaded above their height, which increases the likelihood that they will tip over as they turn. If a truck rolls over, it can crush other vehicles and people in its path. An overturned truck can also fall on top of cars and pedestrians below, causing serious injuries or death to those below it.
Trucks also pose a risk for falling off bridges or cliffs during accidents.
Trucks are dangerous and should not be taken lightly on the road.
Trucks are dangerous, and they should not be taken lightly on the road. Many people are unaware of this fact, but it’s true that trucks are often found in accident scenes. Trucks can cause severe damage to other vehicles when they’re involved in accidents. This is because trucks are heavy and difficult to maneuver, so it’s easy for them to roll over onto their sides or tip over completely if they lose control of their steering wheel or brakes. If a truck hits another vehicle from behind at high speed, then the driver of that vehicle might not have time to react properly before being hit by the truck…which means they could be seriously injured by flying debris off the front end of their car into their body (or even killed).
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Credits to Jason M. Ferguson
Jason M. Ferguson, the founder of Ferguson Law Group, started his career working for an automobile insurance company as a trial attorney before owning his injury law firm for over 20 years. Attorney Ferguson has a unique experience, having tried cases on both sides of the court system in personal injury trials, unlike many other lawyers. Mr. Ferguson also served over 14 years as an Army Reserve officer and the Georgia Air National Guard. The Albany Herald recognized him as one of southwest Georgia’s “40 under 40” in 2010.
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