Accidents Decoded: Most Common Types of Truck Accidents

With the prevalence of truck accidents worldwide, we already know how it can be dangerous or even deadly. Truck accidents not only cause damage to property and vehicles, but it can also cause life-altering or permanent effects to individuals bringing about significant injuries, disabilities and emotional trauma. 

You see these vehicles are incredibly heavy and massive in size therefore pose greater risks. You also pose great risks for everyone else when driving these trucks neglectfully. It is outright your irresponsibility as the driver when maneuvering these large trucks.

When other motorists or cars come close to your truck keeping distance to avoid collisions. Amidst this grim inevitability, there is still great room for hope and action.

It is imperative to recognize that there are proactive measures and responsible behaviors to help lessen the occurrence of such accidents. What you must keep in mind is that truck accidents, just like any other type, are highly preventable.

When you give it much needed attention when driving and have proper practice of driving it decreases the chances of truck accidents. With proper maintenance too you can keep your truck from accidents due to faulty brakes or engine mishaps.

With that said, every individual is a key player in raising an advocacy for safer driving and safer road practices. In the same sense and when such accidents happen, individuals have their own accountability as well. 

Visit website linked here to know more about truck accidents and even how to process for claims with the assistance of an expert truck accident lawyer should you ever find yourself in one. To assist you in exploring more about this critical topic at hand, we listed down below some of the most common types of truck accidents.

Common Types Of Truck Accidents

Keep reading to learn which are the common types of truck accidents and how they occur.

1. Head-On Truck Accidents

Head-on collisions is one type involving two front-ends of vehicles coming onto each other from opposite directions causing strong, direct impact. The other vehicle may often be another truck or even a smaller type of vehicle. 

Impact From Head-On Truck Accident

Undeniably, head-on collisions can often result in shattering impacts such as severe injuries resulting in non-reversible disability or medical conditions. It can even take away one or multiple lives. 

Reasons For Head-On Truck Accident

As a driver you cause head-on truck accidents when you are intoxicated, fatigue, distracted and over-speeding. You are more prone to cause this type of accident when you are neglectful of your surroundings when driving a truck.

Road conditions, such as a slippery surface, decreased road visibility, and narrow lanes also contribute much for this accident to happen.

2.  Rear-End Truck Accidents

In this type of collision, another truck or any type of vehicle hits the back of the other vehicle that is in front of it and sometimes a part of a smaller vehicle gets stuck or lodged at the back of the truck or vehicle it hit. 

Reason For Rear-End Truck Accident Happen

Rear-end collisions typically occur at intersections, exit ramps, highways, and highly congested roadways and are mostly triggered by the driver failing to control his speed or wrongly estimating the distance between his vehicle and the other.

3. Jackknife Truck Accidents 

This type of truck accident involves the misuse of the trailer that is attached to it.  

Reason For Jackknife Truck Accident

Due to improper loading, the truck trailer might get completely detached from the truck or may be unstable. This leads to the swinging part of the trailer which hits other vehicles on the side of the truck. 

Vehicles may also suddenly turn or veer off of the road, get stuck beneath the truck or under the truck, trying to avoid the loose part. This happens when the driver of the truck is being reckless causing it to come loose. The trailer might not be even properly attached or secured in the first place.

4. Truck Rollovers

In this type of car accident, the truck usually rolls over causing an accident and damage to property and life. This type of accidents are due to the heavy weight of the trailers which can topple during maneuvers on turning points. During sudden turns at intersections truck rollovers accidents are more prone to occur.

When the truck-trailer’s center gravity is much more than the speed and velocity of the moving vehicle, then the vehicle rollovers. In most cases, the truck is driving too fast and taking spark turns leading to the accident. 

Reason For Rollover Truck Accident 

Truck rollover accidents usually happen when drivers are reckless and neglectful while they are driving large trucks with heavy trailers. In other cases, the truck drivers may be fatigued, distracted or intoxicated when driving heavy truck-trailers. 

Rollover truck accidents can also occur when your driver is safely driving on the road due to the extreme weight of the trailer. In these cases usually the truck cannot maneuver sharp turns without toppelling the whole truck. With heavy load trucks can lose balance and tires might burst causing accidents. So, proper loading of truck trails is necessary to avoid these accidents along with responsible driving.

Again, due to the other driver’s fault, rollover truck accidents can occur.

Impact From Truck Rollover Accident

In this case, the vehicle can hit other vehicles and cause injuries to the driver and other people. It can even take away one or multiple lives. 

5. T-Bone Accidents

Truck accidents are not limited to front, and back-end collisions but also side collisions. This type of truck accident is called the T-bone accident where trucks take the impact of the collision on its broadest side. 

Reason For T-Bone Truck Accident

At intersections T-bone accidents are more common due to ignoring stop signs when driving large trucks on roads. Truck drivers might run red lights, or choose the wrong way to drive leading to this accident. They can also take the wrong turn leading to the accident.

When more than one large truck is driving on the road with one wrong turn a T-bone accident might occur. This is due to lack of space on road. This accident was given the name T-bone due to the structure occurring from the collision form. The truck takes that impact on its side from another truck or large vehicle forming a ‘T’ shape.

6. Sideswipe Accidents

Another truck accident that happens quite frequently is the sideswipe accident which is similar to T-bone accident. This type of truck accident is caused when two vehicles crash on the side when traveling in the same direction.

Reason For Sideswipe Truck Accident

The reason for sideswipe accidents is due to not detecting blind spots when going in the same direction. As trucks are larger than commercial vehicles, drivers are neglectful when changing lanes leading to collision. 

During merging with upcoming traffic commercial drivers might overlook the distance between its vehicle and truck leading to sideswipe collision. Sometimes sideswipe truck accidents happen when multiple vehicles pile up on the road leading to lack of space to move. 

Conclusion

Ultimately, truck accidents impose imminent dangers. However, with collective commitment and effort, the community may benefit from lessened accidents and having more responsibility in driving and sharing the road. Building a good knowledge-base on the types of truck accidents is still a step forward to preventing these types of accidents from happening.

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