Most people are aware that they'll need to use the law to seek compensation from a truck driver that hurt them. However, "the law" is too broad a term for the various parts of it an accident victim would need to know and use in a truck accident case. When we talk to people about how all those different rules could make their case highly complex, they often end up asking: "Where does Texas truck accident law come from?"
Answer: "Truck accident law" isn't actually a specific area of the law, but rather a combination of common law negligence, federal and Texas law, and federal and state regulations.
In this article we'll briefly examine each of those sources of truck accident law, talk about how they might apply to a truck accident lawsuit, and explain why knowing about them is helpful to accident victims.
Common Law Negligence
Like many cases starting with someone accidentally hurting someone else, the core of a truck accident claim is common law negligence. Basically, a person is negligent when they owe a duty of care to someone else, breach that duty through unreasonable conduct, directly cause harm as a result, and the harmed party suffers actual damages. Those four elements of negligence are the basis of personal injury law.
How Does Common Law Negligence Apply to a Truck Accident Lawsuit?
Common law negligence is a crucial tool in building a plaintiff’s truck accident lawsuit because it provides the legal framework for establishing liability. To succeed, the victim's attorney must show that the person who hurt them—usually the truck driver and possibly the trucking company—failed to exercise reasonable care, resulting in injury or death. As we mentioned before, this involves proving four key elements: duty, breach, causation, and damages.
Here's how it usually breaks down: The truck driver is presumed to have a duty to operate his vehicle safely and in compliance with traffic laws and federal regulations. If the driver violates those standards—by speeding, getting drunk, or violating hours of service, for example—that is arguably a breach of his duty. An attorney must then link that breach directly to the accident and show that it caused clear harm. That is generally done with a paper trail showing damages like medical expenses or lost wages.
Common law negligence helps structure the victim’s case, turning the facts of their crash into an argument that allows a court to use its powers. It also opens the door to holding not just the driver accountable, but also the trucking company through theories like vicarious liability or negligent hiring and supervision. Ultimately, it serves as the backbone of most personal injury claims arising from truck accidents.
Negligence law is also case law, not statute. What does that mean? Well, many rules that govern lawsuits and other cases come from prior court decisions, not official proclamations from lawmakers. Those court-made rules are fleshed out over hundreds of cases and dozens of years, and the precedent they establish is used to render verdicts in later cases. Basically, even if you read every single one of the statutes and regulations that make up truck accident law, you'd still be missing important pieces of the puzzle without case law.
Federal Laws and Regulations
As it does with most parts of life, the federal government exerts some control over the trucking industry through a combination of statutory laws and agency regulations. What's the difference between laws and regulations? Well, laws are passed by legislatures like Congress and signed by the President, and they provide a broad framework for oversight and governance. Federal agencies—in trucking's case, the Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA)—then create regulations, or more details rules, to implement and enforce those laws. Think of laws as the what, and regulations as the how.
What Federal Laws and Regulations Apply to a Truck Accident Lawsuit?
As you might imagine, the answer to that question is pretty extensive. Over the past century or so, the government has stepped in several times to improve and regulate commercial trucking safety, as well as outline best practices for truck drivers and companies. Here are some of the most recognizable laws and regulations:
- Federal Motor Carrier Safety Act: Probably the most comprehensive set of laws related to commercial trucking. Sets requirements for how trucks must be operated and maintained, when they have to be inspected, how long truckers can drive them before mandatory rest periods, and how much insurance truckers must carry, as well as many other factors.
- Motor Carrier Act of 1980: Deregulated the trucking industry, promoted competition and reduced federal control over rates and routes. Allowed new carriers to enter the market more easily, affecting how freight is priced and managed.
- Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1982: Standardized vehicle size and weight limits across states, protects whistleblowers who report safety violations, and enabled enforcement of safety rules on the interstate system.
- Fair Labor Standards Act: Covers wage and hours of service laws related to many industries, including long-haul trucking.
- Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1986: Standardized the issuance of Commercial Driver’s Licenses across states. Each driver must meet uniform testing standards to get a CDL, and can only hold one CDL at a time.
- Hazardous Materials Transportation Act: Regulates how hazardous materials (HAZMAT) are transported, including proper labeling, routing, and handling.
- Electronic Logging Device Rule: As of 2017, drivers of commercial motor vehicles must use ELDs to record hours of service, replacing paper logbooks.
- Unified Carrier Registration Agreement: Requires both for-hire and private interstate motor carriers to register and pay fees based on fleet size.
That's just a handful of the many federal efforts aimed at corralling the trucking industry. Why do that? Because left to their own devices, some trucking companies (and truck drivers) don't act in ways that align with the public good. To keep the peace and promote safety, the government sometimes has to put guardrails in place.
Here's an example of how breaking those rules might affect a truck accident case: The FMCSA has strict hours of service (HOS) regulations for how long a truck driver can operate their truck before needing to rest. These rules weren't decided on a whim—considerable research went into finding the best balance of efficient delivery times and road safety.
Hours of service are clear mandates that every commercial trucker well knows; they establish a driver's duty not to overexert himself by driving too long. When a trucker wears out from staying on the road longer than he's allowed to, he breaches that duty. If he causes an accident in his exhausted state, and the crash leads to serious damages to the victim, that has all the elements of a negligence case against the truck driver and possibly even his employer. At their heart, that's what lawsuits are: A way to balance the scales when someone carelessly breaks the rules and causes harm.
According to the FMCSA, the purpose of federal trucking laws and regulations is to reduce crashes, injuries, and deaths involving commercial vehicles. That's an admirable goal, but the broad strokes of federal regulations aren't always enough to satisfy individual states. That's why further rules are created and enforced by state legislation and regulatory agencies.
State Laws and TxDOT Regulations
Interstate trucking is primarily governed by federal laws, but individual states also have their own rules for trucking operations inside their borders. Trucking companies and their drivers must comply not only with federal regulations but also with state-specific laws when they travel across state lines.
Texas is no different than other states in that regard, and most of its specific rules about trucking come from the Texas Transportation Code. The TTC provides a rulebook of what is and isn't allowed on Texas roads—both for truckers and for everyone else. What it doesn't cover, further regulations from the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) likely do. Some key areas of trucking generally overseen by state laws and regulations include:
- Truck registration and permits;
- Size, weight, and route restrictions on non-federal roads;
- Additional safety inspections and enforcement;
- Environmental impact standards; and
- Taxation and fees.
That's not the whole list, but hopefully those demonstrate how state laws can add onto (or fill in the gaps of) federal requirements.
Local Laws also Play a Part
Local laws can matter in a truck accident lawsuit more than people might expect. While federal laws and state set the "big picture" rules, city and county governments often have their own traffic laws, road use rules, and safety ordinances. For example, a city ordinance might restrict where large trucks can travel. If a truck driver ignores that ordinance and causes an accident on a residential street, proof of that violation could be used to show they acted recklessly and illegally—a violation of their expected standard of care as a professional.
Local laws might also cover speed limits, parking rules, or construction zone requirements, which can all affect who’s at fault in an accident. While local laws may not be the first thing people think about when truck accident lawsuits are mentioned, they can definitely shape how one plays out.
Grossman Law Can Help
Unfortunately for truck accident victims, there is no one-stop shop for learning what truck accident law is. Don't feel bad if it's a lot to take in—with lots of rules coming from many different sources, even some attorneys don't have more than a rudimentary grasp of this area of the law.
That's why it's important to have an experienced attorney on your team. They know what evidence to look for and how to get it, and they're familiar with the ins and outs of relevant federal, state, and local laws. The Texas truck accident lawyers at Grossman Law Offices have decades of combined experience assisting people after all kinds of commercial truck accidents. If you were hurt or lost a loved one in a collision with a tractor-trailer or other commercial vehicle, Grossman Law is available 24/7 for a free and confidential consultation.
