Do Truck Accidents Occur More at Night?
The early afternoon is peak time for truck accidents, but traffic collisions involving commercial trucks can be highly destructive no matter what time of day or night they occur.
Truck accidents are scary anywhere and at any time; there is a reason for the chill of fear you feel when you drive near 18-wheelers on the highway. Trucks are huge, and they cannot stop as quickly as cars can. They spend much of their time on interstate highways, where the speed of traffic is higher. If you have suffered serious injuries in a truck accident, the key to collecting damages is to show that there is something that the truck driver or another party could have done to prevent the accident. A Murrieta truck accident lawyer can help you do this.
What Time of Day Has the Most Truck Accidents?
65% of truck accidents, almost two out of every three accidents, occur between 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m., which is daylight hours in Southern California for most of the year. The early afternoon, from 12:00 noon until 3:00 p.m., accounts for 18% of all truck accidents, or nearly one out of five. Despite this, nighttime driving has its own set of dangers.
The Hazards of Nighttime Driving
Nighttime might not be peak time for truck accidents, but it is peak time for drunk driving and drowsy driving. Truck accidents can happen at night when a truck driver attempts to avoid hitting a drunk or sleep-deprived driver who is driving erratically, and trucks are so big that it is very difficult for them to get out of the way of one vehicle without hitting another. Even though truck drivers must adhere to a strict schedule of rest periods in order to prevent distracted driving, it is easy to feel drowsy when driving at night on a dark highway with no landmarks in view. Likewise, the decreased visibility at night can make it harder to avoid colliding with parts of the road with a counterintuitive layout, such as guardrails by the side of the road or barricaded work zones.
Other Dangers for Truck Drivers
Drowsiness is a major danger for truck drivers, which has led to strict regulations about mandatory rest periods and the maximum number of hours a truck driver can drive in any given day or week. Truck maintenance is another issue for truck drivers. Each driver must inspect various aspects of the truck, such as brakes and weight, to make sure that the truck is not at increased risk of suffering a malfunction that could cause a collision. When truck accidents occur, the task of the personal lawyers representing people injured in the accident is to determine what the truck driver, or anyone else, could have done differently to avoid an accident.
Contact a Murrieta Car Accident Lawyer
A truck accident lawyer in Riverside County can help you if you were involved in a traffic accident involving a commercial truck. Contact Gibbs & Fuerst LLP in Murrieta, California to set up a consultation about your car accident case.