Fatigued Driving

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), in a recent year there were 330,000 commercial truck accidents in the United States; a large percentage of those accidents involved a fatigued truck driver, or a trucker who “fell asleep” at the wheel. Unfortunately, truckers have a history of violating the federal hours of service regulations, and pushing the limits of their bodies’ sleep-wake cycle to meet the strict deadlines they are under – at the expense of other motorists.

If you were injured by a fatigued truck driver, our Dallas truck accident lawyers at The Lenahan Law Firm stand ready to represent you against the trucking company and their insurance carrier. We take on a limited number of cases, which allows us to devote the necessary time, energy, and resources into obtaining maximum compensation for our clients! If we sound like the right law firm for you, then call us at (214) 295-1008 today.

Fatigue is rarely treated as the serious issue that it is. The alarming truth is that when drivers are overly tired, the impact on their brains is nearly identical to being drunk. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), being awake for 18 hours straight is the same as having a blood alcohol content (BAC) of .05%, and being awake for over 24 hours is the same as having a BAC of .10%. For context, the legal BAC limit for truck drivers is .04% — even a minor case of fatigue would be equivalent to a driver getting behind the wheel drunk.

Fatigue can lead drivers to swerve into the wrong lane, take a turn too fast, or even fail to hit the brakes before colliding with another vehicle. Whatever the case may be, there is little doubt that a tired truck driver is incredibly dangerous. Other side effects of fatigue include:

As trucks are much heavier and larger than standard passenger vehicles, a collision between a truck and another vehicle is going to cause catastrophic damage to the smaller vehicle and its passengers. That is why federal regulations have been put in place to combat the causes of fatigue in truck drivers, which include: