Trucking Companies Still Breaking Safety Rules

In early June, the Texas Department of Public Safety conducted its Roadcheck 2009 campaign. The DPS inspected 7,316 18 wheelers. Out of those, 1,636 of the vehicles and 202 of the drivers had safety violations so serious that the troopers took the trucks off the road. The drivers had violations ranging from driving too many hours without sleeping to having suspended driver’s licenses to being under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Many of the trucks that had problems with their brakes.

What makes these statistics even more frightening is that the DPS had announced months in advance that it was going to be inspected vehicles on June 2-4. That means that even though the trucking industry knew that its vehicles and drivers would be inspected, there were still over 1,600 trucks and 200 drivers who had safety violations so serious that the troopers took them off the highway.

At The Cowen Law Group, we handle a lot of cases involving 18-wheeler accidents. We have found that the majority of these crashes result from trucking companies choosing to ignore simple safety rules. Obviously, the threat of getting tickets from the DPS is not enough to get some trucking companies to be safe. We believe that by thoroughly investigating truck wrecks and making the bad companies pay for the harm they cause, we will force them to either take safety seriously or to find another line of work so that the good trucking companies which care about safety can get more work.