After a commercial truck accident, one of the most critical steps a victim can take is conducting a thorough investigation—not just into the history and behavior of the truck driver, but also the safety record of the company behind that driver. But why? What does it mean for accident victims if that company has a history of other safety violations?
Answer: A trucking company's prior safety violations may strengthen a truck accident victim's case by demonstrating that the company has lax safety policies, and therefore may have a greater likelihood of being at fault.
In this article we'll examine the implications of safety violations in truck accidents, and how experienced truck accident attorneys may use a history of those violations to help their clients get what they deserve.
Why Do Trucking Companies Receive Safety Violations?
Trucking companies have a legal obligation to maintain roadworthy vehicles and to ensure their drivers obey strict safety regulations. That may sound simple enough on paper, but in our experience some companies choose to deviate from those rules. Some implement too many cost-cutting measures, others take on too many clients and can't deliver without cutting corners, and still others are simply burdened with incompetent people at one or more levels.
Those who start penny-pinching may be reacting to the trucking industry's thin margins, as even in the best of times there may not be a lot of money to go around. Companies fighting for their very survival start looking for corners to cut, and alleged "non-essential" truck maintenance ends up on the chopping block.
Many companies are also highly reluctant to turn down new business, even if they have too many clients already. Their eagerness to bring in more work means they can't safely deliver all the cargo they've taken on, but do they cut down their obligations to match their capabilities? Hardly—instead, they tell their drivers to speed or exceed their hours of service to "get the load on the road."
Lastly, there's the matter of incompetence—not even necessarily at the driver level, but also supervisors and even executives. The general public would be shocked to learn how many truck accident cases we've taken on where a company's chief safety officer testifies and demonstrates his near-total misunderstanding of his own industry's rules and safety standards.
Whatever a particular company's sins, it and others like it generally believe they can avoid blame for accidents by laying it all on their drivers. The companies bank on someone not looking too closely at their behavior, or lacking the experience to recognize red flags when they see them. That's why having professionals investigate and document company safety records is so important.
To put it another way: Is a jury more likely to punish a normally-safe driver who had a very bad day, or a trucking company with a history of not giving a damn about anyone else on the road? The answer seems pretty obvious.
How Do I Show a Company Has a History of Violations?
Proving a trucking company has a history of safety violations typically requires clear and well-documented evidence. Where does that come from? Two primary sources: The government and the company's own internal records (or lack thereof).
Most government sources are records and documents from agencies that oversee traffic laws and trucking regulations. That could range from police crash reports to records from the federal Department of Transportation—particularly its agencies the FMCSA and the NHTSA. Such documentation could have useful information on past violations, citations, or penalties imposed on the company's drivers or even the trucking company itself.
Other records like driver employment and health records, truck maintenance logs, and histories of other legal action might be in the hands of a trucking company's administrators. Even if the company has a whole stack of relevant materials, though, there's almost no chance it will hand potentially-damning evidence over without a fight. Getting it typically requires a court order, but once the victim's attorney has it they can often use it as an integral part of their case.
How Might the Company's Safety Record Affect Fault in Court?
When safety violations by a trucking company are established in a truck accident case, they can influence a jury's perception of who is to blame for the accident.
Example: A tractor-trailer and an SUV collide in a busy intersection. Further investigation shows the truck driver was watching a video on his phone instead of paying attention to his red light. After consulting with an attorney, the SUV driver files suit against both the truck driver and his employer—which started with a careful investigation of both. We know from experience that a jury who believes the truck driver simply made a momentary bad choice isn't likely to hand down too heavy a punishment, which is why it's always important to learn the whole story.
The above situation is hypothetical, but we've seen instances with very similar fact patterns in real litigation. During the course of one such lawsuit the trucking company tried to distance itself from any responsibility for the trucker's negligence. They tried to claim ignorance of his actions by saying the truck's in-cab cameras "just weren't working" on that particular trip. With no prior history of camera problems in that truck, we figured the company lied to try and stay out of the spotlight. But why go to the trouble of hiding the video evidence? Because they knew what it would show—and how poorly that would reflect on them for not trying to stop their employee's bad behavior.
The circumstances of that case are reflected in countless others. Many truck accident victims aren't the first to suffer at the hands of certain reckless truckers and the companies that keep putting them on the road. Proving with facts and data that the company and its employees aren't concerned with safety and best practices can be a huge step in convincing a jury that the victim's accident was more of the same.
Why This Is Important to Truck Accident Victims
Generally speaking, there's two reasons that accident victims sue a trucking company. Obviously, the first is to get help with their physical and financial recovery. In our experience, however, a close second to that is a desire to see a bad actor suitably punished. If the driver really called an audible and hurt someone, accident victims are typically content with that driver facing accountability for his actions. However, if the driver was backed by a company with bad safety policies or a lax attitude toward driver behavior, people want to hold that company accountable and make it change its ways. At the end of the day, that's why looking into the company's safety history is so important.
That's where experienced and knowledgeable allies can be of tremendous help. The Texas truck accident lawyers of Grossman Law Offices have decades of experience helping truck accident victims, from conducting in-depth accident scene investigations to uncovering important information about the trucking company's safety history. With key evidence in hand they have held many companies accountable for their drivers' recklessness, and helped the people that recklessness hurt get the resolution they deserved.
If you were injured or lost a loved one in an accident with a commercial truck, the attorneys at Grossman Law may be able to help. Call any time for a free and confidential consultation.
