A two truck crash sent both drivers to the hospital in Madisonville, Kentucky on March 23.

The Kentucky State Police stated that one tractor trailer driver was driving his rig south on I-69, and another trucker was following him.

The truck in front slowed down rapidly and attempted to do an illegal U-turn. The truck in the rear could not avoid hitting the truck from behind. Both truckers suffered non-life-threatening injuries, and were transported to a local hospital. 

The Kentucky State Police are continuing their investigation.

Our View

National statistics indicate that there are more than 500,000 truck accidents every year, and many of them are caused by violating safety laws. Also, at least 5,000 people are killed in truck accidents every year. We are glad as truck accident personal injury attorneys that no one was killed in this Kentucky truck crash.

Clearly, it is very important for truck drivers to obey the rules of the road in such a large vehicle. Many states have restrictions on making U-turns, and many trucking companies even forbid their truckers from making U-turns at all, due to safety concerns. It is particularly dangerous for a truck driver to suddenly slow down and make a U-turn without even providing a warning to drivers behind him.

The reason it is so important for truck drivers to carefully obey commercial vehicle safety rules is that when there is an accident, the consequences can be devastating, as the vehicle can weigh as much as 80,000 pounds under full load.

Our tractor trailer accident attorneys have a great amount of experience with truck drivers who disobey basic safety rules and injure or kill other drivers. Our law firm represented the family of a deceased truck driver who was killed on I-95 in Virginia when he and his rig were sideswiped while parked on the shoulder of the interstate.

The truck driver had stopped to check the safety of his trailer, and a passing tractor trailer failed to slow down or move over. He was killed upon impact when the other truck driver ran him over and hit the truck on the shoulder.

The defense attempted to argue that there was contributory negligence involved; they noted that our client should not have been standing on the shoulder and should have placed warning cones behind the trailer. But we brought in a trucking liability and safety expert to look at the totality of the accident scene and the police evidence. He was ready to show that the carelessness and negligence of the other truck driver caused the deadly crash. We settled this truck sideswipe case for $2.25 million, and we hope it serves as a good reminder for truck drivers to drive safely.