Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog

The Florida Department of Transportation recently did a study on motor vehicle crashes in Florida, with a particular focus on fatal truck accidents. The study found that trucks were involved in approximately 39% of all fatal truck accidents. In heavy truck accidents, 50 percent of fatalities occurred, not surprisingly, in vehicles that rolled over. Twelve percent of fatal truck accident in the study were head on collisions. Trailer rear and side underrides accounted for 28% of the fatal impacts among occupants in vehicles colliding with trucks. One interesting aspect of the study that is bound to generate interest is the study's finding that of truck drivers involved in truck accidents that caused death, a one-quarter of the truck drivers were between the ages of 41 and 50. These are experience drivers who might have been considered the least likely drivers to cause a motor vehicle fatality. Another interested finding is that age, alcohol, and speed are less likely to be causal factors in a truck accident fatality than in other types of motor vehicle fatality.

Click here for the full 500 page report.

A recent Jury Verdict Research nationwide study looked at truck accidents from 1996 to 2005 found that the truck accident victim prevailed and received damages in 60 percent of truck accident lawsuits. The average compensation award of these verdicts was $90,000. Not surprisingly, Plaintiffs were more likely to prevail in and receive compensation in head-on truck crashes. In these cases, Plaintiff's prevailed 71% of the time and received an average jury award of $532,034. The average value of a fatal truck accident case was just over $1 million. For truck accident cases that involved a disc injury, usually a herniated disc, the average award was $122,532. Three percent of the jury awards were in excess of $5,000,000. It is interesting that the average back strain injury in a truck accident was worth $17,667. While I do not know what the average back strain is nationally in car accident cases, it is certainly less than $17,667. It seems as though the same injury in a truck accident case is worth more than the same injury from an automobile accident.