By Randy Appleton, Virginia Trucking Injury Lawyer

A woman died earlier this week in Caroline County, Virginia after her a Mack truck slammed into her vehicle and then rolled over on top of it. She died at the scene.

The woman was buying gas at a local station on Route 639 in Caroline County. After she got gas, she was turning right onto the highway, and a Mack truck barreled around the curve, crossed the yellow line and smashed into her car.

The driver of the truck has been charged with reckless driving.

Our Virginia trucking injury law firm has seen a spike in recent years of trucking accidents that raise serious safety concerns about the drivers of these big rigs. A recent state investigation of two truck crashes in Virginia found that the drivers of the trucks had long records of safety infractions. This raises a key question: Why would people who are charged with driving a large, dangerous truck have poor safety records. And why are they still allowed to drive?

In 2013, we learned about a big rig full of pigs on US 258 in Isle of Wight County, VA that was involved in a wreck. Many pigs were thrown out of the trailer and 60 of them died. A police investigation found that the driver of the tractor trailer had been charged with 15 traffic offenses in North Carolina. One of those charges was for reckless driving, and he also had several speeding violations.

Those incidents, as well as this tragedy in Caroline County, show that the issue of driver safety in commercial trucking continues to be a serious issue. There is a pressing need for federal and state agencies to better enforce commercial truck safety regulations. It is very troubling to see how some employers and truck drivers disregard public safety, which ends up killing innocents.