Large commercial trucks often need extra space to make right and left turns, but mistakes during these maneuvers can lead to devastating accidents. Commercial vehicle collisions due to wide turn accidents frequently involve passenger vehicles, pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists who become trapped in the truck’s blind spots or path of travel.
If you were injured in a wide turn truck accident caused by negligence, you may be entitled to compensation with help from a St. Louis truck accident lawyer.
Contact our firm at (314) 300-6260.
Common Causes of Wide Turn Truck Accidents
Wide turn accidents rarely happen by chance. In most cases, investigators can trace the crash back to one or more of the following forms of driver or company negligence.
Failure to Check Blind Spots
Commercial trucks have massive blind spots along both sides of the truck. They are also directly behind the trailer and immediately in front of the cab. The right-side blind spot is especially dangerous during turns because it can conceal an entire car. Truck drivers are trained to check their mirrors constantly before and during a turn. When they fail to do so, they may swing the trailer directly into a vehicle, motorcycle, or bicyclist they never saw.
Improper Lane Positioning
Proper turning technique requires the driver to position the truck so that other vehicles cannot slide into the gap between the trailer and the curb. When a driver sets up the turn from the wrong lane, drifts too far left before a right turn, or leaves an open lane of travel beside the trailer, motorists reasonably assume they can proceed and may end up trapped when the trailer sweeps back across their path.
Turning Too Quickly
Wide turns demand slow, deliberate speeds. A truck that takes a corner too fast gives surrounding drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians no time to react, and it increases the risk that the trailer will swing off-track, tip, or jackknife. Rushed turns are often the product of tight delivery schedules that pressure drivers to prioritize speed over safety.
Driver Distraction
A driver who is looking at a phone, GPS screen, dispatch tablet, or paperwork cannot properly monitor mirrors and blind spots during a turn. Even a few seconds of inattention while maneuvering a 70-foot vehicle through an intersection can have catastrophic consequences.
Driver Fatigue
Federal hours-of-service regulations limit how long truckers can drive without rest, but violations are still common. A fatigued driver has slower reaction times, impaired judgment, and reduced awareness, all of which make a complicated maneuver like a wide turn far more dangerous.
Inadequate Training
Executing a safe wide turn is a learned skill. Trucking companies have a legal duty to properly train and supervise their drivers before putting them behind the wheel. When a company rushes an inexperienced driver onto the road, or fails to verify that a driver can safely handle turns in urban environments, the company itself may share liability for the resulting crash.
Failure to Signal Properly
Turn signals are the primary way a trucker communicates intent to surrounding traffic. Because trucks must swing left to turn right (and vice versa), a missing or late signal is especially deceptive; nearby drivers may believe the truck is changing lanes away from them when it is actually about to sweep back across their lane. Failing to signal well in advance of a wide turn is often a clear violation of the standard of care.
As these examples show, nearly every wide turn accident traces back to a choice to disregard basic safety practices.
Evidence That Can Help Prove Liability
Building a strong wide turn accident claim requires more than simply describing what happened; it requires proof, and much of the most valuable evidence is time-sensitive or controlled by the trucking company. Some of the most important types of evidence in these cases include:
- Police reports: The responding officer’s report documents the positions of the vehicles, statements from those involved, any citations issued, and the officer’s initial assessment of fault.
- Dashcam footage: Video from the truck’s own dashcam, or from other vehicles nearby, can capture the turn as it happened and settle disputes about signaling, speed, and positioning.
- Traffic camera footage: Intersection and surveillance cameras often record wide turn collisions from angles that show exactly how the truck approached and executed the turn.
- Witness statements: Bystanders, other drivers, and pedestrians can corroborate key details, such as whether the truck signaled or whether your vehicle was visible before the turn began.
- Driver logbooks: A trucker’s logs can reveal hours-of-service violations that point to fatigue as a contributing factor.
- Electronic Logging Device (ELD) records: ELD data provides an objective, tamper-resistant record of how long the driver had been on the road before the crash.
- Black box (ECM) data: The truck’s engine control module records speed, braking, throttle position, and other operational data in the moments leading up to the collision.
- GPS records: Location data can show the truck’s route, speed, and whether the driver was navigating unfamiliar streets or making a last-second turn.
- Inspection records: Maintenance and inspection histories can uncover problems like misadjusted mirrors or faulty turn signals that contributed to the crash.
- Photographs of the accident scene: Photos of vehicle damage, skid marks, debris, lane markings, and the intersection itself help reconstruct how the collision occurred.
Because trucking companies are only required to preserve certain records for a limited time and because footage can be erased and vehicles repaired quickly, it is critical to have a personal injury attorney in St. Louis to send a preservation letter and begin gathering this evidence as soon as possible after the accident.
Contact us today to schedule your free case evaluation.