Driver fatigue is one of the most common and dangerous causes of truck accidents in the United States. Long hours on the road, pressure from employers to meet deadlines and the sheer physical toll of operating an 80,000-pound vehicle can lead to exhausted drivers making mistakes that put everyone at risk.
To combat this ever-present concern, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has established strict “hours of service” (HOS) rules that limit how long truck drivers can remain behind the wheel without rest. Unfortunately, when these rules are ignored or manipulated, catastrophic accidents can occur with ease.
When HOS violations cause non-truckers harm
Hours of service regulations are designed to help ensure that drivers have adequate time to rest and recover before getting behind the wheel of particularly powerful machines. For example, property-carrying drivers are limited to driving no more than 11 hours after 10 consecutive hours off duty. They are also prohibited from driving beyond the 14th consecutive hour after coming on duty. Additionally, drivers must take a 30-minute break after eight cumulative hours of driving and may not drive more than 60 hours in seven days or 70 hours in eight days, depending on their schedule. These rules are meant to keep fatigued drivers off the road, but violations still occur far too often.
When a crash happens and driver fatigue is suspected, proving hours of service violations can help to establish negligence on the part of the truck driver at issue, their employer or both. One of the most valuable tools in this process is a truck’s Electronic Logging Device (ELD). These devices automatically record driving time, engine hours and vehicle movement, creating a digital log that cannot be easily altered. By analyzing ELD data, a skilled legal team can identify whether the driver involved exceeded their legal hours, skipped mandatory rest breaks or falsified records, and caused the crash at issue (or contributed to the multiple causes of that crash) as a result.
Employers sometimes encourage drivers to bend or break the rules to meet delivery schedules. If evidence shows that a company pressured its drivers or failed to monitor compliance, liability may extend beyond a driver to their employer accordingly.
For victims of truck accidents, proving an hours of service violation can make the difference in securing full compensation. By leveraging ELDs and related records, a skilled legal team can work to demonstrate how fatigue caused the crash at issue and better ensure that negligent drivers and companies are held responsible as a result.
