Most truck drivers are very good at what they do and they understand that safety is part of the job. They practice it on a daily basis and they try to reduce the odds of an accident.
Unfortunately, as with all other drivers, there are cases where truck drivers make mistakes. One of these mistakes is tailgating. A truck driver may be too close to the vehicles ahead of him or her, and this dramatically increases the odds of an accident. In fact, it is even more dangerous than when a driver in a passenger car is tailgating.
The problem of stopping distances
The issue here is that stopping distances for trucks are much longer than normal vehicles. As a rule, most passenger cars can stop in about a football field, but it can be more than 500 feet for a semi truck.
Yes, trucks do have more advanced braking systems, but they weigh so much more than passenger vehicles that it’s simply hard to slow all of that mass down in time. Even when the driver reacts right away, if that truck is too close to the next car, the driver may simply have no chance to stop before they rear-end that vehicle.
Another potential issue, of course, is that a semi is so tall that it can essentially ride right over the car ahead of it. This puts the people in that car in severe danger, all while the truck driver may not even be injured in the wreck.
If you have been hit by a truck driver who made a clear mistake like this, or who drove negligently are recklessly before the crash, then you need to know exactly how to seek proper financial compensation for your injuries and losses. You shouldn’t be paying for another person’s mistakes.