Any type of accident can be dangerous, but collisions involving trucks can be more catastrophic since they’re more likely to result in serious injuries or even death. When a truck accident happens and you’re injured as a result, then you may have to deal with a lot of damages. These can include hospital expenses, long-term medical care, lost wages and earning capacity, pain and suffering, emotional distress, and many more.
And in order to get compensated for these damages, you can file a truck accident lawsuit. But before anything else, it’s important to take a look at truck collisions and how they happen.
Causes Of Truck Accidents
Just like other vehicular crashes, collisions involving large vehicles are caused by human errors. Because of this, people who are injured as a result of the accident may be entitled to file a claim against the at-fault driver with the assistance of a lawyer from lpguerra.com and others.
But to strengthen your personal injury case, knowing the common causes of truck accidents is crucial. These can include:
1. Driver Fatigue
Operating a heavy vehicle on the road can be a highly stressful job. Truck drivers are often mandated to transport certain goods from one place to another within a certain period. This means they have to drive many miles for several days with a few hours of sleep and rest.
As a result, they experience driver fatigue, which can be one of the causes of truck accidents. Due to tiredness, there’s a possibility they can fall asleep while driving.
2. Improper Cargo Loading
Another common cause of truck collisions is improper cargo loading. Generally, each heavy vehicle should adhere to specific guidelines. It needs to comply with the size, weight, height, and length limits. Thus, if it’s overloaded or it’s too heavy, it’ll more likely tip over and cause a major accident on the road.
3. Swinging Turns
Trucks can also be involved in a road accident due to swinging turns. When a turning vehicle causes a collision, it’s called the swinging turn accident. It usually happens when it either turns wide enough that’d end up hitting other vehicles head-on, when it tries to swing left to turn right, and when it fails to turn wide enough, causing other cars beside it to be squeezed.
4. Distracted Driving
In most cases, driving a heavy vehicle for long distances can be a boring job. In order not to sleep, you’ll find some distractions to keep you preoccupied. These can include texting on the phone, browsing the phone to find music, eating, or doing anything that’ll keep you busy.
However, doing things aside from driving a truck can put yourself and others in danger. When the driver takes their eyes and concentration off the road, it may end up in a serious vehicular accident.
Common Injuries Caused By Truck Accidents
Now that you know the common causes of accidents involving heavy vehicles, it’s time to learn the injuries one can sustain as a result thereof. As mentioned, these collisions can cause serious injuries than those involving passenger cars. Here are the following:
Head And Brain Injuries
If you’re rear-ended by a truck on the road, you’ll likely sustain head and brain injuries due to a blow to the head caused by the collision. When this happens, you may have to deal with long-term medical assistance and care for your recovery. However, this can be a long recovery process as head and brain injuries may cause permanent damage to your cognitive and physical functions.
Whiplash
The extreme impact in a truck accident can result in whiplash or an injury caused by stretching backward and snapping forward of the head and neck. Generally, sustaining whiplash can be a frustrating experience as it may cause sprain and strain in the muscles, tendons, and ligaments in the neck. While whiplash can heal in a few weeks, the more serious ones can be developed into severe neck problems.
Amputation
Another injury caused by a heavy vehicle crash is amputation or disfigurement. It can occur due to the crushing from a collision or another injury such as a severe burn.
If you suffered amputation, you may require life-long medical treatment and adaptive devices to help you live a normal life. Also, the costs may add up as you may need a caretaker to help you with your daily routines.
Burns
If the vehicle involved in a crash is a large tanker vehicle carrying flammable cargo, then there’s a high possibility of explosions and fires. When this happens, you may endure serious burns due to excessive contact with hot water or steam coming from the raptured radiator. Just like other injuries, burns may involve long recovery periods and may cause some other complications when untreated.
Spinal Cord Injuries
Spinal cord injuries happen when there’s a blow to your back as a result of a heavy vehicle crash. Typically, the collision may tear the spinal cord or may damage the vertebrae of the spine, causing paralysis that depends on the severity of the injury. Hence, if you sustained a spine injury, the recovery can take months or years and the treatments can involve surgeries, adaptive devices, physical therapy, and many more.
Broken Bones
The extreme trauma of the truck accident can result in broken bones in the arms, hands, foot, ankle, ribs, and many more. However, suffering from broken bones is never easy. You need to spend some time wearing a cast for your recovery. In the event you sustained a compound fracture, you may have to undergo surgery and long-term medical treatment.
Bottom Line
With the information mentioned above, you now understand how catastrophic and devastating truck accidents are. This is especially true if you’re an injured victim of such a collision. Fortunately, when this happens, you may be eligible to file a claim and recover compensation for all your losses.
But due to the complexity of truck accident cases, it’s important to hire a personal injury lawyer to help you handle your situation. By doing this, you can increase your chances of receiving the right amount of compensation for all your damages.
