Tallahassee trucking accidents should be handled by an attorney with experience prosecuting truck accident cases. There are many details regarding trucking accidents that can have an effect on the amount of money a plaintiff receives in the case. Even when the accident is clearly the defendant trucker’s fault, it’s important for the plaintiff’s attorney to take every effort to determine the culpability of the truck driver. Juries tend to award bigger damages verdicts when the defendant has done something wrong. For instance, truck drivers are supposed to keep a sleep log showing when they slept and when they drove, but many don’t because they are avoiding sleep in order to make as much money as possible. Under the revised Federal rule, a trucker’s average workweek must be less than 70 hours. 30-minute break are required during the first eight hours of driving. And they must take a 34 hour break between workweeks. The 34 hour break must be taken over a two night timespan and must include the hours of between 1:00 and 5:00 a.m.. Truckers may not work more than eleven hours per day, and they must rest a consecutive 10 hours every day.
If a truck driver fails to comply with these rules, the results can be catastrophic. Our firm has handled trucking accident cases which resulted in death and other very serious injuries. Trucking accident cases can be particularly horrible, because the big rigs are so heavy and powerful, high speed momentum can completely demolish anything in the truck’s path, including smaller vehicles and the people inside. For this reason, it’s extremely important to hire an attorney who has experience getting the evidence needed to prove the trucker’s negligence, and also to prove the severity of the negligence.
