Did a Drowsy Trucker Cause Your Truck Crash Injuries?
Federal law limits how many hours an over-the-road trucker can drive in one day, and mandates a specific period of rest between shifts. These regulations are meant to protect other motorists who share the highways with 40-ton tractor-trailers. Unfortunately, truckers and their employers routinely flout the law — sometimes with disastrous results.
Dempsey & Kingsland, P.C., represents victims of 18-wheeler accidents and other commercial truck crashes. We have proved driver fatigue as negligence in several of our verdicts and settlements against freight hauling companies.
Our law firm takes cases in Kansas City and beyond, including Jackson County, Missouri, and Johnson and Wyandotte counties in Kansas. Discuss your injury rights in a free consultation.
Kansas City, Missouri Tractor Trailer Accident Attorneys
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) concludes that more than 750 people are killed and 20,000 more are injured each year in the U.S. as a direct result of fatigued drivers of commercial vehicles.
To cut down on these preventable tragedies, federal regulations specifically limit truck drivers to no more than 11 hours behind the wheel in a 14-hour workday. The trucker is then required to rest for a minimum of 10 hours before getting behind the wheel again. There is also a limit on the total hours of driving allowed in a seven-day or eight-day period.
But more deliveries mean more dollars. Truckers are pressured by employers and personally motivated to drive long past the 11-hour mark and cut corners on the mandated rest time. This results in catastrophic accidents or fatalities when over-the-road drivers fall asleep at the wheel and their rig sideswipes a car in the adjacent lane, crosses the centerline and hits a vehicle head-on, or smashes into another vehicle from behind. Even if the driver is merely drowsy, he/she is less alert, more prone to drift out of the lane, and much slower to hit the brakes or swerve in a crisis situation.
Violation of federal driving regulations is grounds for a negligence lawsuit, and truckers know it. They commonly fudge their driver logbooks to hide their excess hours, usually with a wink from the employer.
Personal injury lawyers Lee Dempsey and Bob Kingsland know the laws and are wise to these tricks. They obtain drivers' logbooks and check them against the truck's onboard data recorder, dispatcher records, rest stop receipts and other evidence to reveal the truth.
Once we have proved driver fatigue, we have ready access to experts who can calculate full damages for the devastation to our client and the family.
Kansas City Truck Driver Fatigue Lawyer
Call us at 816-421-6868 for a free consultation and aggressive pursuit of the compensation you need and deserve. We work on contingency — no recovery, no attorney fees.
