How Often Do Truck Accidents Happen in Pennsylvania?
The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation reports that 8,223 heavy trucks and 461 commercial buses were involved in Pennsylvania traffic accidents in 2022. Heavy trucks were the third-largest class of vehicles involved in collisions that year, after passenger cars and SUVs/vans/pickup trucks.
Truck Accident Risk Factors
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) conducted a study of large truck crashes across 17 states. According to this study, just over 55% of collisions between large trucks and automobiles were caused by the truck or its driver. The study showed that the following risk factors can lead to truck collisions:
- Encountering mechanical problems, including brakes, tires, and wheels
- Using prescription or over-the-counter drugs
- Speeding
- Failing to stop at a traffic signal, sign, or crosswalk
- Losing vehicles or pedestrians in blind spots
- Driving while fatigued
- Driving while distracted
Alcohol and illegal drug use by truck drivers were the factors least likely to cause a crash. Truck drivers are subject to extensive drug and alcohol testing, reducing the risk of drunk or drugged driving crashes.
Common Truck Crash Injuries
Crash energy is the primary factor that differentiates truck crash injuries from other car accident injuries. When a 40-ton tractor-trailer hits a two-ton mid-size SUV, the automobile and its driver can get crushed. As a result, a Lancaster truck crash can cause the following injuries:
Whiplash
The spine supports your body weight and protects your spinal cord. Truck crashes can impact this complex system through whiplash injuries.
When a truck hits your vehicle, your body will twist and bend unnaturally, hyperextending your spine. Some common whiplash injuries include:
- Strained back tendons and muscles
- Sprained spine ligaments
- Herniated discs
The danger with these injuries is that the swollen and damaged tissues can press on nerve roots in your back. When this happens, you could experience pain, numbness, and weakness that radiates into your limbs.
Broken Bones
The force produced by a truck collision can snap your bones, including your leg, hip, ribs, or arm. The recovery time for fractures depends on their severity. For example, a simple fracture might heal in six to eight weeks. On the other hand, a bone shattered into three or more pieces may require reconstructive surgery and a year or longer to heal.
Traumatic Brain Injuries
Your brain controls your entire nervous system. It receives sensory signals and processes all thoughts and emotions. So when you suffer a brain injury, you can experience physical, cognitive, and emotional symptoms, including:
- Headache
- Paralysis
- Confusion
- Loss of vision or hearing
- Weakness or loss of coordination
- Impaired speech
- Memory loss
Time and therapy may help patients recover function, depending on the nature and severity of the brain injury.
Spinal Cord Injuries
When you injure your spine, the spinal cord can get compressed or severed. These injuries can deprive you of control and sensation below the level of the injury.
A severed spinal cord causes permanent paralysis and loss of sensation. You might recover some function if the spinal cord is compressed.
Who Is Liable for Truck Accidents?
Liability in Lancaster truck accidents is usually determined using negligence law. Negligence is a legal principle that imposes liability on someone who unintentionally injures another person. To prove negligence, your lawyer must show that the truck driver or its employer failed to exercise reasonable care.
Determining Negligence in Truck Accidents
When determining truck accident liability in Lancaster, your lawyer will first look at the cause of the crash and evaluate whether it resulted from someone’s failure to exercise due care. Specifically, the law requires the trucking company and its drivers to provide the same level of prudence as a reasonably careful company in the same business would have provided.
Are Trucking Companies Liable for Truck Accidents?
Trucking companies are vicariously liable for the negligent actions of their employee drivers performed during the course and scope of their jobs. When a truck driver runs a red light, the trucking company may be liable for the consequences.
Liability in Lancaster truck accidents can also rest on the companies for taking their own negligent actions. Examples of these actions include the following:
- Hiring drivers with poor safety records
- Failing to conduct required drug and alcohol tests
- Reinstating drivers after crashes or credible reports of drug or alcohol abuse
- Disregarding truck maintenance
- Neglecting to repair broken trucks
- Improperly loading cargo
A court might impose liability on the trucking company for other acts that exposed road users to an unreasonable risk of injury or death. You should discuss your crash with an experienced truck accident lawyer from Atlee Hall to learn how to prove fault in a truck accident in Lancaster.
Compensation Available to Truck Collision Victims in Pennsylvania
You can seek compensation for both economic and non-economic losses. Economic losses include medical expenses, lost wages, and out-of-pocket costs. Non-economic losses cover pain, suffering, disability, and other quality-of-life losses.
Wrongful Death Compensation for Truck Crashes
Under Pennsylvania law, the spouse, child, or parent of a fatally injured accident victim can seek compensation for their loved one’s loss. The damages for a wrongful death claim can be significant since you can seek the replacement of the relative’s financial contributions over their expected lifetime.
Were You in a Truck Accident in Pennsylvania? Call Atlee Hall Today
A truck accident can cause catastrophic injuries. Contact Atlee Hall to discuss filing a truck accident claim in Lancaster, PA. Our skilled Pennsylvania truck crash lawyers have extensive experience standing up to powerful businesses like trucking companies and their insurers.
Call 717-393-9596 today or contact us for a free consultation with one of our truck crash lawyers in Pennsylvania.
Areas We Serve
Our truck accident lawyers in Pennsylvania are based in Lancaster, but we take cases across the state as far west as Allegheny County.
Where Were You Injured?
- Lancaster County
- York County
- Dauphin County
- Adams County
- Columbia County
- Cumberland County
- Juniata County
- Lebanon County
- Luzerne County
- Lycoming County
- Mifflin County
- Montour County
- North Umberland County
- Perry County
- Schuylkill County
- Snyder County
- Union County
