Trucking Accident Statistics Highlight Dangers on Highways

We often see the tragic outcomes of catastrophic trucking accidents in my Atlanta-based law practice. Therefore, when I travel on the highways I am notice the minority of truckers who ignore safety rules. Usually they get by with it, without a bad outcome, but slackness about safety will almost inevitably lead to catastrophe sooner or later.

Some people , of course, think that statistics are irrelevant to them simply because they are unique and bad things only happen to others. Many of them eventually become statistics themselves

I often wind up representing truckers who are injured by other truckers, as well as people in small vehicles who are hit by large trucks.

The statistics about the hazards in trucking are impressive. Data collected by the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and Motor Carrier Management Information System (MCMIS) reported the following National Crash Facts for 2012:

• In 2012, 3,921 people were killed and 25,000 were injured in traffic crashed with large trucks.
• Large-truck occupant fatalities increased for a third year. There was an 8.9-percent increase in large truck occupant fatalities and an 8.7 percent increase in large truck occupant injuries.
• Another shocking fact in the report was that alcohol-impaired drivers in large trucks increased by 86%.
• 61 percent of large-truck occupants killed in 2012 died in single-vehicle crashes.

If you or a loved one have been injured by negligence in operation of a large commercial truck in or from Georgia, contact us today to determine whether you have a claim.

Ken Shigley, author of Georgia Law of Torts: Trial Preparation & Practice, is  a Certified Civil Trial Advocate of the National Board of Trial Advocacy, and has been listed as a “Super Lawyer” (Atlanta Magazine), among the “Legal Elite” (Georgia Trend Magazine), and in the Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers. He practices law at the Atlanta law firm of Chambers, Aholt & Rickard, and has broad experience in catastrophic personal injury, spinal cord injury, wrongful death, products liability,  brain injury and burn injury cases.