It doesn’t seem like a midafternoon on a country route would be that dangerous. Unfortunately, there is always the potential for a semi-tractor trailer to be dangerous.
Far too often, trucks are under-maintained. Commercial truckers have been known to alter their log books in order to let them drive longer than is allowed by law. Loads can be uneven, or they can shift.
That appears to be what happened last Thursday just north of Liberty in Casey County. A trucker was hauling a load of logs on KY 49 near Martens Road at around 1:00 p.m.
He was headed southbound when he crossed the center line for some unknown reason. According to the Kentucky State Police, it preliminarily appears that the 48-year-old trucker overcorrected, and this caused his load to shift. In turn, the logs traveled back across the center line and struck a 2013 Chevy driven by a 27-year-old Liberty woman.
Unfortunately, both drivers were severely injured. They had to be airlifted to the University of Kentucky Hospital. They were both in critical condition at the time the news broke.
A properly loaded truck should not shift
In order for a load to be safe, it must be stable. In a case like this one, it may be that the load wasn’t secured properly. Or, the driver may have been negligent when he overcorrected.
The average semi-tractor trailer weighs around 70-80,000 pounds, fully loaded. That is why federal regulations require truckers to have Class A driver’s licenses, and it’s why the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) mandates the way loads are to be secured.
A passenger car is simply no match for an 80,000-pound truck. We can’t speak to what happened in this particular case, but there are common reasons trucks crash. Drivers fail to secure their loads properly, or they fail to take proper precautions while driving. Their actions can lead to rollovers or other preventable catastrophes on the road.
If you have been injured in a truck accident, be sure to discuss your situation with an experienced personal injury attorney.
