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Approximately five thousand fatal truck accidents occur in the United States every year. Though large truck accidents are far less frequent than passenger car accidents, truck accidents are usually more catastrophic in terms of damage to property and life. One in eight traffic accidents involves a large commercial truck. Between 1992 and 2002 the number of fatal truck accidents in the United States increased by ten percent.
Nearly eighty percent of the victims in fatal truck accidents are those who were in passenger cars at the time of the collision. Approximately twelve percent of all fatal truck accident victims are truck drivers. In 2002, pedestrians accounted for 336 of the lives lost in fatal truck accidents. Nearly seventy bicyclists were killed in fatal truck accidents in that same year.
Statistics about fatal truck accidents furnished by the University of Michigan provide insight into the conditions most common to fatal truck accidents. In 2002 researchers found that two out of every three fatal truck accidents occur in a rural area. The majority of fatal truck accidents occur during daylight hours. Eighty percent of all fatal truck accidents occur on dry roads where weather conditions were considered normal (meaning there was no rain).
Sixty percent of all fatal truck accidents involve a tractor pulling one semi trailer. Between 1999 and 2002, the greatest number of fatal truck accidents occurred in Florida, California, and Texas. Fifty five percent of all fatal truck accidents involved truck rollover during the collision. Ten percent of all fatal truck accidents involved a fuel fed oil fire. About nine percent of all fatal truck accidents involved a passenger car crossing the center divide and striking a truck head on.
Large trucks have a relatively high propensity to rollover in a collision. Rollover accidents typically involve a great amount of catastrophic physical and property damage and often lead to fatal truck accidents. Rollover can occur when a truck driver is forced to make an abrupt avoidance maneuver, as a result of his/her own negligence or another driver’s conduct.
The culprit in fatal truck accidents that involve fuel fed fires is most often the battery box. When the battery box is exposed and its integrity is compromised in an accident, it can ignite a fuel source and increase the risk of greater injury and damage. Other causes of fatal truck accidents can include truck or passenger car driver recklessness, intoxication, or fatigue, or inexperience.
When victims die in fatal truck accidents, the survivors are often unsure how to handle the aftermath of the tragedy. When fatal truck accidents are caused by negligence on behalf of the truck driver, company, employer, contractor, manufacturer or the like, the decedent’s family may have the legal right to seek compensation for the losses suffered in fatal truck accidents.
To learn more about your rights and options in a case involving fatal truck accidents, you may wish to contact a qualified and experienced attorney.
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