Each year there are thousands of truck accidents, leading to injuries and fatalities, expensive insurance claims and lengthy traffic jams as wreckage is cleared. While large trucks are involved in fewer accidents than other types of vehicles per 100 million miles driven, these accidents have a higher rate of fatalities. In those crashes where the truck was the main cause of the accident, 87 percent were due to driver fatigue.
Commercial truckers have a set of rules that must be followed regarding the operation of their vehicles.
What Are the Hours-of-Service Regulations?
As the driver of a large, heavy truck, you have a lot of responsibility as you drive down the road. The biggest concern is safety. That brings us to the main reason for the hours-of-service regulations – to keep fatigued drivers off the public road ways. These regulations put limits in place for when and how long you may drive, to ensure that you stay awake and alert while driving, and on a continuing basis to help reduce the possibility of driver fatigue. The hours-of-service regulations focus on when and how long you are allowed to drive by placing specific limits on the amount of time you drive your truck and how many total hours you can work before you are no longer permitted to drive a commercial motor vehicle.
What Is a “Driver’s Daily Log”?
Now that we have finished talking about the hours-of-service limits, it’s time to talk about what you must do to keep track of your time. This is done in written form, unless your time is being recorded electronically using an automatic on-board recording device or other electronic logging device (ELD) system.
The written form you must fill out as you do your work is called the “record of duty status.” Common names for this form are the driver’s daily log, log, or logbook. Everything you write on the log must be true and correct. You must make all of your own entries.
As you can see by the emphasis placed on accountability, the condition of the driver is critical to the safety of all vehicles and persons traveling on the same highway. Any form of impairment is a risk to the lives of all travelers.
Drivers are too often held to unobtainable results which may cause the driver to push on rather than rest or in some cases falsify the log books.
It is crucial that you contact our attorneys immediately if you are involved in an accident with a commercial carrier in order to preserve crucial evidence.