How Fatigues Affects Your Driving | The Reasons Truck Drivers Suffer From Fatigue | Proving Truck Driver Fatigue
According to statistics compiled by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, about 13% of all commercial vehicle accidents involve some level of driver fatigue. The National Transportation Safety Board estimates that 40% of all heavy truck wrecks result from drowsiness on the part of the driver.
State and federal legislators have long known driver fatigue is a leading cause of commercial truck accidents and have enacted laws and regulations governing the amount of time a truck operator can spend on the road. Currently, under federal law, the following rules apply:
- A commercial truck driver may be on the road for no more than 11 hours within the 14 hours immediately following a break of 10 hours or more. Once that window has closed, the driver must take at least 10 hours off.
- A driver may not drive more than 8 hours consecutively without taking a minimum 30-minute break
- A commercial truck operator may not be behind the wheel on the road for more than 60 hours in any 7-day period or 70 hours within any 8-day period.
How Does Fatigue Affect a Truck Driver?
According to the National Safety Council, staying awake for 20 consecutive hours is comparable to driving while exceeding the legal level for blood alcohol. This level of fatigue can affect your reaction time, making it more difficult to take evasive action in an emergency. Fatigue or drowsiness limits your attention span and can impair your judgment, particularly with respect to how fast you are traveling, how much time you have to stop, and when you need to negotiate a turn. Of course, when you’re behind the wheel of a vehicle that may be pulling up to 80,000 pounds, such impairment can easily lead to disaster.
What Are the Common Causes of Truck Driver Fatigue?
Perhaps the most common cause of truck driver fatigue is tied to the way truck drivers are usually compensated. Because they are paid by the load, there’s an incentive to complete every trip as quickly as possible in order to earn more money. Accordingly, drivers may ignore or intentionally flaunt the time-on-the-road requirements, even falsifying logbooks to cover their tracks.
Fatigue may, however, arise from a number of other factors:
- Changes in sleep patterns, due to lifestyle, illness, or injury—A driver may have sleep apnea or insomnia, or may have demands at home that prevent regular sleep.
- Time of day—A driver may be getting regular sleep, and may be complying with time-on-the-road regulations, but can still be at risk for fatigue behind the wheel. Studies show that most fatigue-related truck accidents occur between 2:00 am and 6:00 am, and between 2:00 pm and 4:00 pm. Those may be the ideal times to take a break.
- Stress—Studies show that fatigue or exhaustion is a common side-effect of stress.
- Medications—A driver may be prescribed medication that produces drowsiness.
- The comfort of the vehicle—Everyone wants to drive in comfort, particularly when you’re traveling long distances. Unfortunately, with many of the modern big rigs, that level of comfort can lead to relaxation that causes a driver to doze.
How Do You Prove Driver Fatigue in a Truck Accident Case?
Driver fatigue caused by violation of time-on-the-road regulations can be proved with the driver’s logbook. Also, some modern trucks have a black box, similar to those found in airplanes, which may include information about when the truck was driven.
In the absence of a logbook or black box, or if there’s no evidence that the driver exceeded driving time regulations, you’ll want to look for witnesses who saw the driver engaging in conduct that suggested fatigue or drowsiness, such as weaving back and forth, crossing solid lines, or driving at extremely slow speeds.
Contact the Experienced Commercial Truck Accident Lawyers at Bailey & Galyen
At the law offices of Bailey & Galyen, we know that a personal injury can change your whole life in an instant. For more than four decades, we’ve aggressively fought to protect the rights of personal injury victims across Texas, including people who have suffered any type of injury in a commercial truck accident. Over the past 40+ years, we have successfully garnered hundreds of millions of dollars in judgments and settlements for injured people throughout the Lone Star State and across the nation. We will be your advocate throughout the legal process, from the investigation of your accident to the filing of a complaint, and then through trial and the final resolution of your lawsuit. Contact us by e-mail or call our offices at one of the convenient locations listed below. Our phones are answered 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
