Any car accident can cause serious injury or death, and accidents involving large commercial trucks can be absolutely devastating. Unfortunately, many drivers do not drive with care around commercial trucks, and often contribute to very serious accidents that they could have avoided. Commercial truck drivers face a number of additional difficulties that consumer drivers often don’t consider.
If you often drive in areas with large commercial trucks, it is wise to understand which driving behaviors to avoid when near these enormous vehicles. While you cannot control the risky behavior of other drivers on the road, you can always take your own driving habits seriously and make sure that you do not increase the risk of accidents for yourself or others.
Should you experience an accident with a large commercial truck, be sure that you have all the help you need to protect your legal rights and collect all the relevant evidence at the scene of the accident to begin building a strong claim.
A personal injury attorney in your area can even come to the scene of the accident and help gather evidence and advise you of your rights when you speak with the other parties or with the police. Don’t make the mistake of taking such an accident lightly, especially if you or anyone else suffered injuries.
Driving behavior around large trucks
Remaining safe around large trucks is simple when you take time to consider the additional difficulties commercial drivers face. Once you understand these limitations, you can more easily avoid trouble.
These drivers cannot turn their vehicles sharply, and cannot stop quickly, because of the length of the trailer and the immense weight of it all. Furthermore, these drivers ride much higher off the road than commercial vehicles and have other large blind spots that commercial vehicles do not.
Generally speaking, commercial drivers cannot see cars behind them or directly beside them very well, and cannot stop or swerve to avoid a consumer vehicle very efficiently without potentially jackknifing their trailers or possibly rolling over.
When driving around large commercial vehicles it important to always:
- stay out of a large truck’s blind spots directly beside and behind the truck as much as possible
- give a truck plenty of space when you maneuver in front of it
- give a truck plenty of space when it changes lanes or turns
- avoid pulling in front of a truck if you cannot match its speed
- avoid driving between two trucks if possible
- avoid braking abruptly in front of a truck
You may identify other driving behaviors that help you stay safe around large trucks as you consider the restrictions these drivers face and apply it to your driving.
