Illinois Truck Accident Lawyer Blog

While the trucking industry has been working hard at improving safety standards and reducing trucking accidents, many in the industry admit that there is still a lot that can be done to further increase trucking safety. According to ETrucker’s website, the American Trucking Association further states that the most important things to remember and keep in mind when working on trucking safety programs is to deal with the risk of trucking accidents and with the causation of trucking crashes. While any safety precautions are clearly better than nothing, the trucking association considers dealing with risk and causation as the only real ways that the trucking industry will be able to continue getting safer. In terms of risk, the new federal rules that establish a limit of how much time truck drivers can be on the road are aimed to help with this problem, as well as the suggestion by the trucking association that the maximum speed limit be reduced to 65 miles per hour. In terms of changes affecting the causation problem, the trucking association recommends holding individual drivers accountable for accidents they are involved in. Right now, individual drivers are not always held individually accountable for accidents and often times the trucking company alone is held liable. The idea behind the causation safety initiative is that by holding drivers accountable, there will be more incentive for drivers to be safer and that will increase the overall safety of the trucking industry. To read more about the American Trucking Association’s recommendations for reducing trucking accidents, please click on this hyperlink.

A Hardin County, Illinois trucking accident that occurred on April 23rd left one man dead and another seriously injured. The accident occurred on Route 34 when a passenger truck tried to pass a semi-truck and collided with another semi-truck as it attempted to pass. Unfortunately, the driver of the passenger truck suffered such serious personal injuries that he ended up dying at the scene of the tragic trucking accident. The driver of the semi-truck involved did suffer some personal injuries but refused to be taken to the hospital for treatment following the accident. The area of Route 34 where the accident occurred was closed temporarily to clean up after the semi-truck’s load spilled into the road. To read more about this fatal trucking accident, please click on this link.

Attempting to pass other car on a two lane highway is extremely dangerous and can easily result in a head on car accident. Even in areas where passing is allowed, please remember that it is very hard to determine how long it will take a car coming from the opposite direction to approach and to always err on the side of caution. If you feel like you need to pass a car in an area that allows passing, make sure to only pass if there if there are no cars coming in the opposite direction. If you are not sure if there is time to safely pass a car, please do not attempt to because of the serious risk and danger of a car accident resulting from attempting to pass when there is not enough time to safely get around the car in front of you.

A trucking company filed a lawsuit against a truck manufacturing company, in which they claim installed a defective exhaust system which leaked toxic fumes into the truck and caused a truck driver serious brain damage. According to The Madison Record, the complaint alleges that the owners of the truck took the truck in multiple times for various defective parts to the company that manufactured the truck, but that the trucking company failed to ever properly identify the problem. The plaintiffs argue that the trucking company in failing to fix the problem, put not only the driver at risk but other drivers on the road as well in the event of a trucking accident. One of the owners of the trucking company that is suing the truck manufacturer was the driver of the truck as well and has suffered serious and permanent brain damage as a result of the alleged faulty exhaust system.

To read more about this defective truck lawsuit, please click on this link. If you or a loved one owned a vehicle in which you feel there was a defect in the design of something that caused a car crash or put you in serious danger, please call an Illinois accident attorney to discuss your options and if you may have a valid claim against the car manufacturer. It is important for car and truck manufacturers to ensure that all safety precautions and standards are met when manufacturing any vehicle, and if a company fails to meet these standards, the consumer should be entitled to relief for the company’s failure to provide a safe vehicle.

A trucking accident that occurred on April 19th left one Illinois pedestrian dead and seriously injured another. The accident occurred when a sports utility vehicle crashed into a semi-truck, causing the SUV to roll over onto the sidewalk and trap two people that were pedestrians on the sidewalk. Thanks to the witnesses that worked so hard to save the man trapped under the vehicle, that man is expected to be completely fine. According to the Chicago Sun Times, a group of people that witnessed the accident came together and were able to lift the SUV, which weighed over 3,000 pounds, off of the trapped man so he could be taken to a hospital. The woman that was killed had also been trapped under the vehicle and the bystanders were able to get her out as well, but unfortunately her injuries were too severe for doctors to save her. The two pedestrians that were involved in this accident were a married couple that were walking to the bank in order to get some exercise. At this point, the Lombard Police are not sure what caused the initial accident, but it is still under investigation. To read more about this pedestrian accident, please click on this link.

Unfortunately, pedestrians are killed as a result of car and trucking crashes all the time. In 2003, eleven percent of all motor vehicle deaths were pedestrian deaths. According to Walking Info’s website, the most common group of people that are at risk for getting struck by a car are very young boys that may have the highest tendency to dart out into the street. The least common age group to be affected by pedestrian crashes are the elderly population which is probably a result of this age group being the most cautious pedestrians and those least likely to walk in highly traffic-filled areas. It is important for all walkers to be cautious and alert when walking, especially in areas where traffic is heavily congested. Even though pedestrians have the right of way, many drivers may not always stop in time so everyone should always double check before crossing the street.

The driver of a truck that struck and killed a small child and injured four others and then fled the scene has been charged with five felonies in connection with this tragic hit-and-run accident that occurred in Cartage, Illinois in December. The hit-and-run prison sentence has not yet been determined but the driver responsible can face up to 15 years in prison in connection with the hit-and-run felony. The accident occurred when the defendant was driving a pickup truck with a trailer towed behind it and the trailer broke of the truck and crossed the center line striking an oncoming vehicle. According to The Whig, the driver turned his truck around and passed the accident and drove away after causing the terrible accident. To read more about this Illinois trucking accident, please click on this link.

In Illinois, it is a serious offense to leave the scene of an accident. According to Illinois driving laws, any driver involved in a car or truck accident where people are injured or property is damaged is required to stop at the scene, exchange information and provide help if needed. If a person in Illinois fails to stop after damaging property it is considered a misdemeanor hit-and-run (Class 4 felony carrying up to $25,000 in fines and up to 3 years in prison) and if a person is injured and a negligent driver leaves the scene, they can be charged with a felony hit-and-run (Class 2 felony carrying up to $25,000 in fines and up to 7 years in prison). If a person is killed during the hit-and-run, the charge is a Class 1 felony carrying up to a $25,000 in fines and up to 15 years in prison. While it may be scary to be in a car accident and leaving is scene of an accident is never the right choice. Always make sure if you are involved in an accident that you stay and make sure that everyone is okay and that information is exchanged.

On April 14th two North Aurora teens were killed in a fatal accident involving their passenger car and a garbage truck. According to the Chicago Tribune, the trucking accident occurred on Illinois Highway 47 in the early afternoon near Waubonsee Community College. According to the truck driver the accident happened when he was driving on IL 47 and the passenger car turned into a driveway in front of his truck. Aside from the two teenagers that were killed in the crash, a man was also injured. It is unknown if this was the truck driver or another person that was in the passenger car. To read more about this tragic accident, please click on the link.

Unfortunately teenage drivers are the age group with the highest fatal crash rates as well as the highest traffic violation rates. Several of the factors that are believed to contribute to the high number of teenage accidents is that teenagers are the most likely to take risks, to have a low risk perception, to have poor hazard detection, to lack driving skill and to be distracted while driving. According to the Department of Motor Vehicles website, in 2008 there were 164 fatalities in the state of Illinois that were either teenage drivers, passengers of teenage drivers, or people that were killed as a result of a teenage driver. One way to helpfully lower these statistics is to impose stricter driving rules and driving education for teenage drivers and with that hopefully there will be less of these tragic teenage trucking accident.

An Illinois woman has filed a trucking accident lawsuit in connection with an accident that the complaint alleges left her sick, sore, disordered and disabled. The trucking accident occurred when the plaintiff claims she was driving on I-55 and a tractor that was traveling on the same highway struck her car. The lawsuit claims that the Defendant caused the accident by failing to keep a proper lookout, that he failed to stop to avoid a collision, and that he failed to keep his vehicle under proper control. According to the St. Clair Record, the plaintiff is seeking over $150,000 in damages. If you would like to read more about this trucking lawsuit, please click on this link.

Often times plaintiffs involved in a trucking accident will sue the trucking company as well as the driver. In this case it is known that the defendant was working for a trucking company, but is unknown whether the plaintiff will name the trucking company as an additional defendant in the lawsuit. Being that trucking companies may face liability for their drivers, it is important for companies to make sure that not only safety programs are offered and required for all drivers but that drivers are actually driving safely on the roads and not causing trucking crashes. If you or a loved one have been involved in a trucking accident and feel that the driver and/or the trucking company were at fault for the damages incurred, please contact an Illinois accident attorney today so you can discuss what options are available to you.

A Southern Illinois man was killed in a trucking accident on the morning of April 12th. The victim was an elderly man, 95 years old, and the accident occurred when he failed to yield at a stop sign causing his car to be struck by a tractor-trailer. The truck flipped on its side but the trucking driver only suffered minor personal injuries and is expected to recover fully according to WSIL TV. The elderly man was killed as a result of the injuries he sustained from the accident. The area of Route 148 where the fatal accident occurred was shut down for most of the day to clean up the gasoline spill from the tanker truck. To read more about this Williamson County trucking accident, please click on the link.

Many accidents, like the one above, are caused by elderly drivers whose reaction times may make it difficult for them to drive. If you are a elderly driver or have an elderly family member that is still driving, it is important to look for warning signs that may mean that you should not still be behind the wheel and be aware of safety tips for elderly drivers. Some of the things to look out for and be aware of how they can affect your driving are visual decline, hearing loss, limited mobility and increased reaction time, overall drowsiness, dementia and affects that medication may have on driving ability. All of these changes that often come with age can affect driving and it is very important to remember to respect these changes and make sure you are safe to drive. Certain tips are offered by Help Guide’s website to help elderly drivers make sure they are safe while driving and they include making sure that the car is right for you and that you are comfortable driving it, driving slowly and on familiar routes and maintaining distance from other cars, avoiding distractions that might take away from your concentration, and avoiding uncomfortable driving situations such as new areas, crowded streets, and weather problems. To read more about elderly drivers and tips to help avoid car accidents, please click on this hyperlink.

A trucking crash that occurred several weeks ago was caused by road rage and left two men facing attempted murder charges. The incident involved a dump truck and a passenger car and got so dangerous that the passenger car driver ended up firing shots into the truck. While the exact details are unclear, at this point multiple witnesses of this rush hour road rage incident report that the truck driver began intentionally hitting the car and pushing it into the guardrail on the side of the highway. According to The Washington Post, the incident occurred over the course of 20 minutes with the rage in the drivers rising and shots eventually being fired. While luckily no one was hurt, both drivers are being charged with attempted murder. The driver of the passenger car is also being charged with reckless use of a firearm, shooting a missile into an occupied vehicle, and child endangerment because the driver’s two year old daughter was in his car while he participated in this horrific incident. To read more about this road rage trucking accident, please click on the link.

Aggressive driving or “road rage” is a very dangerous condition that can greatly endanger both the driver and others on the road. Aggressive driving occurs when a driver gets so upset at something that occurs while they are driving that they take out their rage on other drivers and act irrationally on the road. According to AAA’s Foundation for Traffic Safety, over 1,500 people are injured in car accidents that are caused by aggressive driving each year. It is important to remember how dangerous it can be to let your anger get the best of you. If another driver is provoking you, ignore them and do not retaliate. Remember that giving in to road rage cannot only hurt you, but other people on the road as well.

The Comprehensive Safety Analysis (CSA 2010) is a new federal truck safety program that will be introduced nationally this summer. The new program aims to use trucking safety data in a more productive way that will hopefully improve safety regulations in trucking companies throughout the country. This new change has been in the works for several years, with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration creating a system that will make safety regulations more streamlined and effective, hopefully reducing the number of trucking accidents. The way that safety regulations for truckers currently works, and the reason this new system is needed, is that compliance reviews which are the main component to truck safety systems are being done in a way that allow only less than two percent of all trucking carriers to be tested each year. Given this small percentage of carriers that can be checked each year, and the importance of maintaining safety standards among trucking companies on a federal level, a new system and more effective way of regulating trucking companies was definitely necessary.

According to Trucking Info.com, this new program has been tested in several states prior to the introduction of the program this summer. The reason for this early testing is to understand how the program will actually work and how effective it can be. So far the test states have reported that the truck drivers involved in the test programs have been getting prepared and are using the new program as a way to increase driver safety awareness. No test state has said that there has been any negative feedback so far and those involved feel that this program is definitely a positive thing and will hopefully reduce truck crashes nationally. To read more about this new trucking safety program, please click on this hyperlink.

The recent federal proposal to make it illegal for truckers to text message while driving has stirred up a lot of issues and opinions on both sides of the argument. On one side people in opposition to the possible ban argue that truckers save time and money on long cross country trips by being able to communicate quickly with dispatchers. According to New York Times Blogs, many trucks are equipped with onboard touch screen computers which function very similarly to text messaging on a cell phone and which have cost the trucking industry a great deal of money to install and put into use. Advocates of the potential ban acknowledge the slight positive, but feel the overall danger and risk of trucking accidents caused by texting while driving is so great that this ban is exactly what is needed to increase safety on the roads. At this stage both sides of the argument are being heard and further research is being conducted to determine if this ban should go into effect. To read more about the pros of banning texting for truckers in order to avoid trucking accidents and the cons of drivers not being able to use the onboard computers, please click on the link.

Illinois has recently enacted a statewide ban on text messaging while driving. Many states have taken the texting problem on and found a solution on their own, instead of waiting to hear if the federal government places a ban on the action. Driver distraction is a huge problem and many car and trucking crashes each year are caused by this avoidable issue, and often times it is found to be the result of texting while driving. Illinois chose to ban all texting while driving, including truckers. The Illinois legislature decided that any benefits to being able to text while driving, even for truckers, was greatly outweighed by the danger that was caused and that the practice must be banned in the state completely. To read more about how Illinois chose to combat traffic accidents caused by distracted drivers, please click on this link.

Given the danger of truckers driving too many hours without enough rest, and the number of semi-truck accidents that occur each year and could easily be avoided, the federal legislature is introducing a law that will require trucking companies that have had issues with time limits to have tracking devices in their trucks. Many horrific accidents have occurred when truck drivers are overly tired and fatigued and cannot focus on the road leading to an accident. Several weeks ago, a particularly awful trucking accident occurred in which a truck crossed the center line of the highway and crashed into a van heading in the opposite direction, killing eleven people. To read more about this horrible trucking accident, please click on this link. While losing control or falling asleep at the wheel is dangerous in any situation, it can be exceptionally dangerous when it involves a tractor-trailer truck.
This new law will only affect trucking companies and truck drivers that have previously been found to not comply with the limit on number of work hours, and in turn will only affect about 1-2% of all trucking companies. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration website, lays out the hour limit for drivers for all different situations. The trucking company involved in the tragic accident a couple weeks ago was one of the companies that have received a deficient rating when undergoing a safety check, and this new law would be aimed at targeting companies of this sort. The law will not go into effect until mid-2012 in order to allow time for the electronic monitoring system to be fully developed and tested. To read more about this new monitoring system enacted to try to prevent fataltruck crashes, please click on the link.

A tragic trucking accident that occurred on March 26th resulted in the death of eleven people. The accident occurred when a truck crossed over the highway median and crashed directly into a church van that was filled with a group of people on their way to a wedding. According to Boston.com, among the victims were the truck driver, and ten passengers in the church van. Two child passengers of the church van survived the terrible accident. To read more about this car crash, please click on the link.

The trucking company that owned the truck that was involved in this accident had repeatedly failed safety checks and had received poor safety rating from federal regulators of trucking companies. According to Google, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board has stated that they will be investigating the trucking company as part of the accident investigation, looking at their safety culture, training, accident history, and how they handle driver fatigue. This accident serves as an unfortunate reminder of the importance of trucking safety and the reason trucking companies need to always be on top of safety for their trucks and drivers. To read more about the unsafe trucking company that caused the trucking crash, please click on the link.

Luckily, two children that were involved in this horrible accident did survive the crash. The evidence shows that that the children were riding in safety seats, which are required by law for all children under a certain age. This tragedy goes to show the importance of following these child safety laws and making sure that anytime small children are riding in a car, that the car is properly equipped with safety seats for the young children. While it is unknown at this time if the adults in the accident were wearing their seat belts, the safety precautions taken for the children were likely what saved their lives.

A trucking accident lawsuit has been filed in connection with a trucking accident that occurred back in 2008. The accident occurred when the victim was driving on I-70 and was struck from behind by a tractor-trailer. The accident left the victim in a coma and her husband has filed this lawsuit on her behalf. The complaint alleges that the victim has incurred over $600,000 in medical expenses in addition to lost wages she has suffered and will continue to incur. According to The St. Clair Record, the husband of the victim names the truck driver for causing the accident and states that he was negligent in that he failed to keep a proper lookout and failed to slow down to avoid an accident. To read more about this Illinois trucking accident lawsuit, please click on this link.

Often times when a trucking crash occurs, the trucking company may be held liable for the driver’s actions. Because trucking companies can be liable, it is important for all trucking companies to try to insure that their drivers are properly trained and are very safe and cautious when on the road. Trucking safety is very important to trucking companies and truck drivers and this extended safety effort can be seen in the number of trucking accidents decreasing in recent years. However, these accidents do still occur too often and if you or a loved one were involved in a trucking accident that you feel the truck driver or trucking company may have been at fault in causing, please contact an Illinois accident attorney to further discuss your options.