If you’re on the road often, you probably see cargo trucks all the time. These eighteen-wheel juggernauts take up a lot of space. They travel from state to state and sometimes across the country, carrying items ranging from produce to children’s toys.
You will notice these trucks weigh much more than the average car, and they’re much longer and wider as well. You can imagine the damage you’d sustain if one of these trucks hit your vehicle.
Understanding the next steps after a cargo truck accident becomes essential, but it’s always better if you can avoid these situations. Let’s talk about how you might do that right now.
Stay Away from Them
If you’re not near a huge cargo truck, then it can’t hit you. That might sound simplistic, but it’s something that some drivers don’t acknowledge.
Usually, you see these massive trucks on the highway. They might take local streets occasionally, but, for the most part, they’re out on the interstate bound for parts unknown.
If you’re on the highway as well, you might tail one of these trucks or pull alongside one if a traffic pattern makes you do that. If that happens, then try putting distance between your vehicle and that truck as soon as you can.
If you’re not near a huge eighteen-wheeler truck, then it can’t cause an accident involving your car, and that’s the best and most obvious way you can avoid this potentially devastating situation. You might survive one of these behemoths hitting you, but if you’re nowhere near one, that’s almost an impossibility.
Know Their Blind Spots
If you see that a traffic pattern leads your car so that it’s near an eighteen-wheeler, you should get away from it as soon as you can. While you’re near one, though, you should at least know about their blind spot locations.
Big commercial trucks have blind spots, just like a car does. With most cars, you have a blind spot on your left-hand side at about the vehicle’s midpoint. You know you must check that blind spot before you change lanes. Luckily, blind spot detection exists now in some cars, and many drivers find that helpful.
Big trucks have a blind spot that’s in about the same place. However, they also have two more you should know about. They have one directly in front of them and also right behind them.
It makes sense when you consider it for a moment. A truck driver can’t see over the front of their truck, nor can they see what’s right behind them. That means if you’re in one of those spots, you’re potentially in danger, just like when you’re beside a vehicle this size.
If you’re in a commercial truck’s blind spot, don’t panic, but know that you should move as soon as you can. Presumably, the truck driver knows you’re there if they’re paying attention. However, a truck driver who’s not paying attention might move their vehicle in such a way that it hits yours if you’re in their blind spot and unable to move fast enough.
Pay Attention
More than anything else, you can usually avoid big truck collisions if you just know where their location when you’re on the road. On the highway, if you see one of these trucks, you can adjust your speed so that you pass them, or you can slow down and let them get ahead.
If possible, you should avoid situations where you’re near one, and above all, you should avoid traffic patterns that put you between two of these trucks. If you’re sandwiched between two of them, that’s inherently dangerous.
If one of them swerves or does something unexpected, they might hit you. Just a nudge can cause a devastating crash since you have a much smaller vehicle.
If one of these huge trucks ever strikes you, then hopefully, you won’t sustain that much damage. Maybe one made contact, but it didn’t hit you squarely.
If the truck driver caused your accident, then you should probably hire a competent big truck accident lawyer or law firm. Some firms and attorneys take these cases exclusively, or they’ve at least handled them several times in the past.
That’s who you want representing you. They will know whether you can sue the truck driver, their company, or both. If the truck hits you because the company didn’t maintain it properly, you can likely win a lawsuit if you bring one.
