Four people, including a woman and three children were injured in a truck accident in Loganville, Georgia.The accident occurred on Friday when a tractor-trailer crashed into an SUV. According to police, the truck accident occurred at an intersection when the tractor-trailer struck the SUV in the left rear quarter panel.Witnesses at the scene have confirmed to police that the SUV driver had the green light.Police have charged the tractor-trailer driver with failure to obey a traffic control device.The female driver of the SUV has also been charged with failure to restrain a child.Her three children were in the car, an eleven-year-old, a ten-year-old and fourteen-year-old, were taken to a hospital.
Failure to obey traffic laws is important for any motorist, but these failures can be critical and can have devastating effects when they involve tractor-trailer drivers.Drivers of these massive commercial trucks are at a high risk of causing an accident when they run red lights, tailgate or break other traffic rules.The risk to motorists in the vicinity of a truck is high because drivers of smaller vehicles involved in an accident with a tractor-trailer are at a much higher risk of being injured.As truck accident attorneys know, an overwhelming majority of accidents that involve a tractor-trailer and a smaller passenger vehicle end with serious personal injury or wrongful death of the occupants of the smaller vehicle.
Those are frightening odds for any motorist to beat, and tractor-trailer drivers must always keep that fact in mind.Further, tractor-trailer drivers must avoid dangerous behaviors like speeding or distracted driving.Speeding is believed to be the number one factor in commercial truck accidents in the United States, contributing to more accidents every year than drunk driving or distracted driving.Driving at speeds beyond the posted limits for commercial trucks, or at speeds that are inappropriate for current traffic, weather conditions, can lead to devastating accidents.
Drivers must also focus 100% of their attention on the road.The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and the Department of Transportation have recently been strengthening their efforts on reducing distracted driving accidents involving commercial truck and bus drivers.There is now a ban on texting while driving for commercial truck drivers.
It goes without saying that a commercial truck driver must also avoid driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.Drug use among commercial truck drivers is a widespread problem that Atlanta truck accident attorneys are very concerned about.Many drivers choose to take drugs like methamphetamines to stay awake and drive for more hours.A driver gets paid more when he drives more hours, and using methamphetamines can help a driver to stay awake.Unfortunately, when the effects of the drug wear off, the driver immediately becomes severely fatigued or drowsy, and may be at risk of dozing off at the wheel.
The Atlanta truck accident lawyers at the Katz Personal Injury Lawyers represent persons injured in commercial truck and 18-wheeler accidents in the metro Atlanta region and across Georgia.