With All Of The Tractor Trailers On Tennessee's Roads, How Safe Are We From A Truck Accident?

A few weeks ago, I was in a  mediation in downtown Nashville. The office I was in had a view of the Interstates that surround Nashville.  At one point, what looked like a mile long caravan of tractor-trailers was in one lane moving to whatever the next destination was.

This is not an article about traffic, we all know how much that has increased. But the long caravan of trucks made me think of the constant stream of trucks that pass through and to Middle Tennessee every day. You see reports of accidents that happen all too frequently. These accidents typically have serious consequences as the sheer size of the trucks causes incredible damage when they are involved in an accident.

There are specific laws that govern the trucks and how they must be operated.  The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSR) specifically pertain to a wide-range of requirements.  

These requirements hit numerous areas but two in particular that are often important are  maintenance and maximum road hours. It should be noted the state of Tennessee has adopted the FMSCR into law.

Regarding maintenance, certain requirements are set in law for maintaining the tractor-trailers in a  safe manner. This includes drivers doing pre-inspections of the vehicles before taking a load onto the road.  Specific logs and records are needed to ensure that companies and drivers do not take chances and are as safe as possible on the road. All too often though, corners are cut and really digging into the maintenance issues is critical in your case.

There are also limits for the amount one can drive on the road each day. This avoids fatigue and drivers pushing too hard to either get loads to the destination on time or to carry more loads.  We all know the dangers of even drowsy driving during typical rush hour in our cars. Well, for tractor-trailers this can be an even more serious problem. As such, a  thorough investigation into all these records is required.