Why Do Houston Semi Truck Drivers Improperly Strap Their Loads?
Did you know that more than 130,000 people have been injured due to semi-truck accidents? They can be detrimental and sometimes even fatal for a variety of reasons. These trucks are naturally very large and heavy compared to ordinary vehicles.
This makes them more dangerous due to the fact that it is harder for them to stop quickly. Besides that, they are often carrying huge loads. Some may carry products inside trailers, while others may have loads strapped to the back of the truck such as logs or other products.
Whatever the case, if a truck driver ends up improperly strapping down the truck’s load, serious consequences could ensue. But what does strapping down a load accomplish and why would a truck driver decide not to secure the straps in the proper way?
Keep reading and learn more about what goes into strapping down a semi-truck load.
What You Need to Know About Strapping Down a Semi-truck Load
A semi-truck needs to be secured in a very specific way. This is because whatever sits on the truck’s trailer needs to be balanced. If it is not balanced, it could easily start to wobble once the truck is in motion.
This, of course, would not be safe for anyone. The wobbling of the trailer may force the truck itself to start swerving even if the truck driver tries to control the vehicle as securely as possible. Besides that, wobbling equipment on the back of a trailer will have a bigger chance of falling off the trailer and onto the road.
This has happened several times, and it can happen to any product that isn’t strapped to the back of the truck in the right manner. For example, suppose a truck is carrying a trailer full of logs stacked on top of each other. Normally, as long as the logs are strapped down, they shouldn’t wobble or affect the truck driver’s ability to drive.
And, of course, the logs should not come loose or fall into the road. However, all of this will change if the straps holding the logs are even slightly loose or if some are not secured at all. If this is the case, then the logs will start to topple over each other.
As you can imagine, this is a recipe for disaster. Such an improper load can easily cause a terrible accident, if not several accidents. Suppose that the logs on the back of the truck came loose and fell into the road.
The Details
The logs might fall on top of cars traveling next to the truck and crush them along with whatever passengers they may contain. This could either cause a fatal accident or it may cause serious injuries to those passengers. Besides the products falling directly onto nearby vehicles, they may instead roll into the road and into the path of oncoming cars.
This could result in the oncoming vehicles crashing right into the logs, again either causing a fatality or catastrophic injury. Fallen cargo could also cause other vehicles to swerve out of the way, which may cause them to crash into other cars or veer off the road. They may crash into trees, ditches, houses, or other objects.
This is not to mention that all this could happen to several vehicles at once, especially if the cargo spill is quite significant. You could also imagine that such an accident could cause several car crashes at once and perhaps several fatalities at once.
This, of course, could happen not only with logs but other pieces of cargo that a truck may carry such as farm equipment, construction material like blocks of concrete, and so on.
For that reason, it is of the utmost importance that a load is as secure as possible before the truck starts to move. But why would a semi-truck driver fail to secure such a load in the first place?
Why Do Semi-Truck Drivers Improperly Strap Loads?
Semi-truck drivers almost never improperly strap their truck loads on purpose. It is almost always some kind of accident or act of forgetfulness that causes this to happen. Often, a truck driver may think that they strapped the load properly even when they didn’t.
This, of course, is a huge mistake since it could easily cause an accident. Truck drivers are trained to strap down loads in a very particular way to maximize safety as much as possible. As long as a driver follows what they learned in training, the load should always be secured.
The problem that often arises is that a truck driver may take his job too leniently or he may not care as much about securing the load after doing it for the hundredth time.
This may cause some laziness or overconfidence that compels a driver to strap down a load improperly. He may think that he did it correctly but, in reality, he may have missed a crucial component of tying down the load.
Even the smallest mistake like that can have disastrous consequences. Even if only one strap is loose, this could still cause the entire load to wobble, shift, or fall into the road. Improperly strapping down a load may also have to do with forgetfulness.
What You Need to Know
The truck driver may be in the middle of strapping down a load when he is interrupted by something. After that, he may forget to finish securing the rest of the load. This, of course, could result in a disaster.
Truck drivers almost never improperly strap a load on purpose. This is because they know that they would be held liable for whatever kind of accidents ensue from such a decision. This would also make it harder to drive the truck since the load would cause the truck to become unbalanced.
But keep in mind that the truck driver may not always be the one to secure the load. In some cases, other truck workers may strap down the load.
This may be the case if the truck driver needs to travel and pick up a load that has supposedly already been secured, so the only thing left to do is pick up the load and continue traveling.
In this case, the truck driver would not be the one to secure the load. But what happens if that load happens to not be secure?
Who Is Liable?
You might be wondering who would be liable for an accident caused by a load that has not been secured if that load was not secured by the driver. Of course, if the driver secures the load himself and does it the wrong way, he will be the one responsible. However, even if the truck driver does not secure the load personally, he is still responsible for ensuring that the load is secure.
If he does not do this, then the driver can still be held liable for any accidents even if the load was secured by someone else. For that reason, the truck driver needs to be very careful when picking up a load that has been secured by someone else. The load may look secure at first glance, but it is always important to check.
By personally checking the straps, the driver can make sure that the load is as secure as possible and that the load isn’t going anywhere. It is important to check over the straps thoroughly and never assume that the person who secured the load did it properly. The problem is that not many truck drivers go through all this trouble.
They might assume that the load is already secure or at least secure enough before getting back on the road. This, of course, can cause accidents if the load really isn’t secured. If an accident occurs due to this problem, the truck driver will be to blame.
This is because it is the driver’s responsibility to make sure that the load is as secure as it’s supposed to be before the load is taken out on the road.
All About Strapping Down Semi-truck Loads
Strapping down a load on a semi-truck is of the utmost importance. If this is not done in the right way, the load could easily start to wobble or come loose and fall into the road. This, of course, could cause all sorts of accidents and even some fatalities.
If you have been in this kind of accident or something similar, contacting a lawyer in Houston, Texas, can help.