Are low-speed truck accidents dangerous?

Yes.

Commercial trucks are much bigger and heavier than conventional vehicles

18-wheelers (also known as “semis”) dwarf nearly every other motor vehicle on the road. Small cars may weigh as little as two-thousand pounds. Fully-loaded semis can weigh up to 80,000 pounds (40 tons). Such enormous vehicles pose a substantial danger to smaller cars and vehicles, even at low speeds: 

• Rear-End Collisions
  
  Semis take much longer to stop than ordinary vehicles, even unloaded. According to the DOT, nearly one in five accidents involving commercial trucks are rear end crashes, and in the majority, a trucker crashed into another driver.
  
• Rollovers
  
  Trucks also have a higher center of gravity, and even at reduced speeds they can rollover. This is especially true in bad weather or on poor road conditions.

• Jackknifing
  
  Trailer hitches can be up to eighty feet long. Even a slow-moving truck that jackknifes may sweep across the road and collide with cars several lanes over.
  
• Underriding
  
  Set on enormous tires, trucks are much taller than ordinary automobiles. Their greater ground clearance poses a significant danger to lower cars.
  
  Collisions between semi trucks and other cars often lead to underriding, an accident in which a lower motor vehicle moves underneath the front, rear or side of a semi-trailer.
  
  The consequences can be devastating. Many underriding accidents destroy the car, injure the driver and passengers, and even cause fatalities.

Department of Transportation Data Shows the Dangers of 18-Wheeler Accidents

There are fifty times more cars than commercial vehicles on the road (depending on location and time of day). However, one in ten car accident deaths involve commercial vehicles.

Auto accidents involving commercial vehicles have risen steadily across Texas and the fifty states, with increased injuries and property damage. Even worse, fatal car crashes with commercial vehicles have risen forty percent, and most involved trucks.

If you have been in an 18-wheeler accident in Texas, contact the personal injury law firm of Justinian & Associates. We offer an entirely free consultation with a seasoned truck accident attorney (not a ‘screener.’) We will listen to your story, and explain your options under Texas law. There is never any obligation.