Oklahoma City Legal Issues Blog

With children out of school, there are plenty of people in Oklahoma who take long road trips over the summer. Unfortunately, summertime also sees an increase in the number of car accidents. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that car and motorcycle crashes are the leading causes of traumatic brain injuries that require hospitalization.

With this in mind, it's important for car crash victims to be examined for a concussion as soon as possible. This will help reduce the chance of a false diagnosis. Concussions are hard to detect because symptoms arise at different times for different people: sometimes minutes after the crash, sometimes days. Symptoms include exaggerated changes in mood, a loss or diminishing of cognitive function and slurred speech.

Trucking safety is a major public concern for people in Oklahoma and across the country. It's important to note that tractor-trailer accidents are far more likely to injure or even kill the occupants of passenger cars than truckers. Therefore, it's vital that the government maintains clear and accurate information about trucking safety records in order to reduce the likelihood of these types of crashes.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has released a report indicating how it plans to retool its trucking company safety assessments after it was mandated to do so by Congress in 2015. Despite the importance of trucking safety data in preventing and reducing dangerous trucking accidents, the industry has complained for many years about the agency's safety ratings, claiming that they are unfair and inaccurate. In response to this industry pressure, Congress passed a highway bill that required the FMCSA to remove its current ratings from public view and mandated the agency to create a new system to track carrier safety.

Commercial truck drivers in Oklahoma might want to check their brakes. The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance's Brake Safety Week is scheduled to take place Sept. 16-22. During the event, CVSA inspectors will conduct roadside checks on commercial trucks and pull from service those with critical brake issues.

Brake violations are a common problem in the commercial trucking industry. Brakes can fail and cause accidents if they are not properly installed, inspected and maintained. In 2017, the CVSA conducted Brake Safety Day and found that 14 percent of all inspected vehicles had serious brake violations. Further, brake violations were the top reason vehicles were pulled out of service during the CVSA's 2017 International Roadcheck. In addition, a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration study on the causes of large truck crashes found that 32.7 percent of trucks with pre-crash violations had brake issues. The study also found that 45.5 percent of trucks involved in crashes where brakes were a critical factor had pre-crash brake violations. In comparison, 29.9 percent of trucks involved in crashes that were not brake-critical had brake violations.

Distracted driving remains a serious problem in Oklahoma and other parts of the country even though most states have laws in place prohibiting cell phone use while operating a vehicle. However, research suggests the problem is actually getting worse. An analysis of nearly 65 million vehicle trips found distracted driving occurred during nearly 40 percent of them. It's also an issue that extends to certain drivers within the trucking industry.

According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), large trucks have a crash rate that's lower than other types of vehicles. There's also research suggesting that passenger car drivers are primarily at fault for approximately three-fourths of all fatal truck and car accidents. Even with a generally good safety record, the trucking industry has problems with a subset of drivers who behave recklessly.