If you’re a truck driver, you know that there’s always a risk that you’ll be involved in an accident. Of course, many of these accidents happen when other drivers around you make mistakes and cause the crash. For instance, one common type of accident is when someone cuts a truck off and then stops at a red light, but the truck doesn’t have enough time to stop because the other vehicle cut them off.
But even if another driver isn’t responsible, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the truck driver is the one who is at fault. Truck driving is a major commercial industry and there are a lot of different links in the chain that have to be examined.
Did the load shift?
One example of this is if a load shifts in the back of a truck. This can happen when the crew that loaded the truck at the warehouse or distribution center simply didn’t do it properly. Maybe they didn’t balance it the way they should have or perhaps they didn’t use the right straps and other devices to secure the load.
No matter what mistakes they made, that load can then shift on the back of the truck when it’s in motion. This often happens as the truck goes around a corner or makes some other such maneuver. The load shift can pull the truck to the side and even cause it to overturn. An outsider would think that the truck driver must have made a mistake, if they were watching that crash, but the driver knows that it was something out of their control.
So who is responsible?
Who is responsible in a situation like this largely depends on who loaded the truck. It could be that the trucking company itself is responsible, as well. For instance, maybe they didn’t give the crew the appropriate tools that they needed to secure the load properly. Or maybe inspections were supposed to be carried out, but they were skipped to save time. Each case is unique.
In some cases, truck drivers will be injured in a load shift accident that doesn’t even involve another vehicle. But they could still see a significant disruption in their earnings and high medical bills, so they need to know exactly where they stand. If you’ve been injured in a truck accident, make sure you know about all of your legal options.
