How many times have you been riding down the interstate and had a fellow driver cut in tight on you? Most of us have had this happen. These errant drivers count on us to be able to quickly apply our brakes to avoid striking them.  Fortunately, when some drivers choose cut in front of others, most passenger cars operators are able to avoid a collision when this happens.

For commercial truck drivers, however, it’s a much different story. Semi-trucks simply can’t come to a full stop as quickly as passenger cars. Let’s look at the details as to why this is true:

When a 40-ton commercial tractor-trailer collides with a one-ton passenger car, the results are often catastrophic. The injuries that result from car vs. truck crashes can cause death or lifelong impairment. In many cases, a person’s life is cut tragically short by this type of vehicle accident.

When both a large truck and a small car are involved, it is almost always the occupants of the smaller vehicle who suffer the worst outcomes. For all two-vehicle collisions involving a semi-truck and a smaller car, 97% of those killed are occupants of the small car, not the large commercial truck.

If you’ve spent any time at all behind the wheel of a motor vehicle, you’ve probably encountered your fair share of tractor-trailers that are traveling much too fast on the interstate. There are many reasons that truck drivers choose to speed, including pressure from employers, tight deadlines, and even a sense of boredom or fatigue and wanting to push themselves to the next stop.

Speeding is never safe, though. Truck drivers, in particular, must be especially aware of their speed, as large trucks take much longer to come to a full and complete stop after a driver first applies the brakes. Large commercial trucks are much more susceptible to speed-related crashes than smaller passenger vehicles.

Many of us have gotten behind the wheel of a car when we were probably too tired to do so. It often happens because someone picks up an extra shift at work, stays up late studying for a test or working on a project, or when an emergency arises.

If you’ve ever driven while tired, you might have initially felt a sense of adrenaline when you first got behind the wheel. You may have assumed that you could keep up the momentum.

Not seeing any other cars on a poorly lit stretch of a 2-lane highway or sparsely trafficked interstate may quickly zap any remaining energy out of you, making it nearly impossible to hold even one eye open.

Trucking routes that weave back and forth across our nation make up the very fabric of American culture. The service truck drivers and companies provide is indispensable to the way we live our lives every day. But the roads truckers use to do their job are the same ones the rest of society uses to go to work, drop their kids off at school, run errands, and visit friends and family. This means that 40-ton tractor-trailers regularly travel alongside, in between, and around vehicles up to 30 times smaller in weight—not to mention motorcyclists, bicyclists, and pedestrians.

Truck drivers need to be prepared for all kinds of situations. Since they are highly trained and have to follow specific requirements while on the road, there’s a lot of information that they need to stay up to date on to ensure they are always following the rules. Extremely important rules truck drivers need to follow include the requirements for what to do when their truck breaks down. These rules are intended to keep the truck driver, other motorists, and everyone around as safe as possible in the event of a breakdown.

Krzak Rundio Law Group has successfully represented numerous victims of accidents involving commercial trucks, big rigs, 18-wheelers, and tractor trailers. The following article is intended to provide information about truck overloading requirements, limits, penalties for violation, and impact on road safety in the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago.

If you were involved in a truck accident and are planning on pursuing legal action to seek compensation for your losses, one important consideration is the type of trucking accident you were in. Determining the type of crash that happened is crucial to the presentation of your case.  Most types of crashes are categorized by the angles at which the two vehicles first collided.

Jackknife truck accidents, which happen when the trailer of a truck swings out past the cab, are a type of common tractor-trailer accident. The name comes from the fact that when the trailer swings over, this leaves the truck in a jackknife or “V” shape since the two parts are still connected. These types of accidents are incredibly dangerous and have the potential to result in serious or even fatal injuries. There are a number of reasons as to why jackknifes are so dangerous, which is what we’ll take a look at below.

Many children rely on the school bus to get to and from school. Illinois has enacted school bus safety laws to protect those children. When negligent drivers break the law regarding school buses, they may cause an accident and cause serious injuries to children. If you or a loved one has been harmed in an accident, the Chicago injury attorneys at Krzak Rundio Law Group are here to hold irresponsible drivers accountable.

Before learning more about how we can help you, let’s take a look at the school bus laws in Illinois and the unique situations Chicago drivers should be aware of when they encounter a school bus on the road.

When you drive on the highway, you will likely encounter tractor-trailers transporting goods. Since large trucks are usually weighed down by the load they’re carrying, they might not be able to move as quickly as you would like them to.  Unfortunately, there are times when individuals start to pass the truck, the truck switches lanes directly into their car and a collision occurs. This happens more than you would think, and you may ask yourself, what went wrong?

Your car might have been in a “No Zone” and you didn’t even realize it, so the truck crashed into you. No Zones are the four main blind spots for large trucks:  (1) directly in front of the cab; (2)  directly behind the trailer; (3) a small patch just to the left of the trailer; and (4) most of the area to the right of the rig. These danger zones are the places where accidents are more likely to happen because commercial truck drivers cannot see passenger vehicles in these areas surrounding their rigs.

According to data collected by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 82% of fatal crashes involving commercial trucks are multiple vehicle accidents with passenger vehicles. In many of these crashes, the passenger vehicles were most likely unseen by the truck until it was too late. If you need to pass a large truck on the road, you need to know the safest way to do that.