Failing to maintain a truck can put others’ lives at risk
Keeping others safe needs to be a priority to trucking companies. In order to keep their vehicles in the best condition, preventative maintenance should always be done. If you’ve gotten into an accident with a truck that has not been maintained properly, this information may be helpful to your case.
Vehicles that are not properly maintained can have a higher risk of being involved in accidents, and that means a higher risk of litigation based on negligence. What is negligence? It’s when the owner of the vehicle isn’t doing what he or she can to provide a reasonable standard of care to others. For example, if the vehicle has rusting wheel bearings, the likelihood is that they need to be replaced. If one breaks despite the company knowing it was rusting out, then you could claim that negligence was the cause of your accident.
Companies should be proactive in protecting those around them, particularly when their drivers are behind the wheels of commercial vehicles. These vehicles are extremely heavy and much larger than a passenger vehicle, so an accident can result in serious injuries and the loss of life much easier than with a car-on-car collision.
Companies should have a preventative maintenance program in place to make sure issues with the vehicle are corrected as needed and even before they’re needed. Annual inspections, along with an every-shift walk-around to look over the vehicle manually, should be performed to keep people safe. If you’re hurt because these simple tasks weren’t undertaken, then it’s important to know that negligence might be the basis for your personal injury claim.
Source: North Dixie Truck & Trailer, Inc., “The importance of a preventive maintenance program,” accessed June 30, 2016