Although fault is often clear to the people involved in a crash, the driver who caused the wreck may not want to admit their culpability. Drivers don’t want to pay tickets or to have large claims brought against their insurance coverage. They may lie about what caused the crash or may omit information when communicating with police officers after a collision.
Professionals who operate semi-trucks have even more of an incentive than the average motorist to avoid liability for a wreck. Causing a crash while on the clock could put their commercial driver’s license (CDL) and their job at risk.
Professionals operating commercial vehicles may not want to acknowledge that they did something unsafe or illegal immediately before a crash occurred. In such cases, the black box in the semi-truck could help the other people affected by the crash pursue justice.
What is a semi-truck’s black box?
Many people are familiar with the black boxes carried by airplanes. Those boxes provide important information in the event of a plane crash. There is a similar device inside of any legally-compliant commercial truck. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) requires electronic logging devices (ELDs) inside 18-wheelers and other large commercial trucks.
ELDs help capture information about drive time and the placement of the vehicle. They record location data every 60 minutes and document every time the operator starts the vehicle and shuts it down. The ELD can also record when a driver operates a semi-truck for personal purposes while on break or changes their duty status.
Investigators can extrapolate details from a black box, including the speed of the vehicle and warning signs of regulatory non-compliance. They could find indicators that a driver was on the road for longer than the law permits. The information recorded by a semi-truck’s black box can help validate allegations that a driver may have violated the FMCSA’s Hours of Service rules, possibly because of their employer’s requirements.
Fault influences compensation options
The information obtained from an ELD or black box inside a semi-truck can help prove that the semi-truck was at fault for the crash. It can also establish that the trucking company may have contributed to crash circumstances.
Policies that force drivers to make unsafe decisions and violate Hours of Service rules could open a company up to civil litigation. Those affected by semi-truck or 18-wheeler collisions often have complex financial needs that go beyond what insurance covers.
Discussing what happened before a semi-truck crash and the financial aftermath of the collision with a skilled legal team could help those affected by a commercial trucking incident secure appropriate compensation. The information recorded by a semi-truck’s black box could play a major role in the pursuit of compensation and justice after a wreck.