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Home > Personal Injury > Accidents > Trucks / Semis Accidents

Truck Accidents

Denver, Colorado, Wyoming, Ohio and Nationwide

Due to the sheer size and weight of tractor-trailer trucks, they are prone to unique types of tragedies on our nation’s roadways. Unfortunately, if you are involved an accident with a truck and you are in a passenger vehicle, your chances of suffering serious personal injury (or death) are very high. Because these trucks often weigh over 80,000 pounds, they tend to inflict far more serious damage than automobiles involved in a collision. If you have been injured in a truck accident, the Denver, Colorado personal injury attorneys at Burg Simpson Eldredge Hersh Jardine, P.C can help.

Causes of Truck Accidents

Some of the most common causes of truck accidents are:

  • Improper maintenances
  • Faulty brakes
  • Overloaded trucks (very common cause of accidents)
  • Unbalanced truck loads
  • Jackknifing
  • Driver fatigue (excessive hours, inadequate rest, failure to observe federally-mandated rest stops)
  • Road hazards
  • Inclement weather
  • Excessive speed

Because of their classification as “common carriers,” tractor-trailers (18 wheelers) are subject to very strict state and federal regulations including:

  • The number of hours the truck can be driven at one time and the amount of rest a driver must obtain during the trip
  • The type and size of the cargo that can be hauled
  • Maintenance schedules
  • Extensive record-keeping requirements

Weigh stations are set up all along the highways in the United States and serve as checkpoints where trucks are supposed to stop, get weighed, and get inspected. Weigh stations will check for truck and load weight, illegal cargo, falsely reported cargo, and compliance with Hours of Service (HOS) laws. If an overweight truck is detected at a weigh station, the driver may only be given a ticket. This allows a dangerous truck with an unsafe weight right back on our roadways. Other violators may be detained until an overweight permit is issued or the weight can be reduced somehow.

Overloaded Trucks Cause Major Problems

There are a variety of ways that overloaded trucks are dangerous and cause accidents:

  • Tires can burst when there is too much weight
  • Overweight trucks, when going downhill, travel much too fast and are difficult to control
  • The added weight adds momentum which can mean too much stress on the brakes causing brake failure
  • Overweight trucks need much longer stopping distance
  • Overloaded trucks can have the weight shift in the truck causing steering difficulties
  • An overloaded truck is more likely to roll over due to a raised center of gravity
  • An overloaded truck can cause a bridge or overpass to collapse, posing a substantial danger to  many people

If you or a loved one has been hurt or killed in a truck accident in Colorado or Wyoming, please contact the experienced truck accident attorneys at Burg Simpson Eldredge Hersh Jardine, P.C. today to schedule a confidential consultation.

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Burg Simpson Eldredge Hersh & Jardine, P.C. is a law firm serving the Rocky Mountain Region. The firm has offices in Denver, Colorado, Cody, WY, Cincinnati, Ohio, & Phoenix, AZ. The Firm is responsible for the content on the website,this information is not to be interpreted as providing legal services,
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