Garden City Truck Accident Lawyer
Garden City Truck Accidents Lawyer Helping Fight Trucking Companies with Negligent Semi-truck Drivers to Get Financial Compensation for Injury Victims.
Truck and tractor-trailer accidents happen in Garden City and Finney County often due to the intersections of main trucking routes from east-west and north-south. Our experienced Garden City truck accident lawyers are highly skilled in tractor-trailer litigation and in understanding and applying the federal regulations to each semi-truck accident case.
The CrashStats from NHTSA for 2021 reported that seventy-two percent of the people killed in large truck crashes were the drivers, occupants and passengers in other vehicles and not the truck drivers. Drivers of large trucks that were involved in fatal traffic accidents have a higher percentage (20.8%) of previously recorded crashes when compared to other truck drivers.
According to the NHTSA, Kansas has the 13th highest traffic fatality rate in the county with 1.41 roadways deaths for every 100 million miles traveled. Kansas roads are among the most dangerous in the country. The Kansas Department of Commerce found that rural roads like in Finney County and the surrounding counties in Southwest Kansas are three times as fatal as on Kansas Interstate Highways. Study: Kansas rural roads among America’s most deadly
The statistics in Kansas for inattentive drivers are significant. According to the Kansas DOT and the 2021 Kansas Traffic Crash Facts Book, the number one contributing circumstance to motor vehicle crashes in Kansas is inattentive driving. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), Kansas motor vehicle crashes in 2021 resulted in 424 deaths. Fatality statistics by state
Why do Tractor-trailer Crash Injuries in Western Kansas Cause Such Horrible Injuries?
What Are the Different Types of Negligence Claims that Can Be Made Against a Trucking Company?
The truck driver and trucking company owe a duty of care to the automobile driver under Kansas law. When they violate a duty imposed under law by acting negligently or recklessly and are the proximate cause of your injuries, they are liable.
- Our Garden City truck injury attorneys bring additional legal claims against the motor carrier. A few of the many claims that can be additional brought against a large trucking company are:
Not having a Safety Plan to comply with the FMCSR and CSA BASICs and OP-1 oath. - Negligently hiring a new hire truck driver by failing to conduct proper background checks.
- Negligently training the new hire truck driver by not using a 3-day orientation training procedure followed by comprehensive testing.
- Negligently supervising the driver by not making them stop driving when out of legal hours or operating in dangerous weather conditions.
- Negligently retaining the truck driver with a poor driver record with traffic citations, property damage incidents and tractor-trailer crashes without retraining and discipline resulting in bodily injury or death.
- Negligently dispatching the truck driver when they are out of legal hours to drive under the FMCSR.
- Truck drivers and motor carriers who act in reckless disregard of human life when they act willfully, wantonly or maliciously. These actions allow us to seek punitive damages in addition to actual damages to punish the driver or motor carrier.
Our Finney County trucking attorneys use a team approach to develop and build your truck crash case into the largest case to increase your financial compensation. This means that you have our full time and attention 24 hours a day and can call your trucking injury lawyer on their personal cell phone at any time you have a question.
What is the Kansas Chart Team from the Kansas Highway Patrol?
The KHP Critical Highway Accident Response Team (CHART) team investigates fatal crashes from car and large truck accidents and has a substantial number of CHART crash reviews in the 90-mile radius around Garden City. Many local Garden City residents have seen the Kansas CHART Team from the Kansas Highway Patrol.
The CHART team is known as Troop I. They are the trained troopers who investigate and reconstruct serious commercial motor vehicle (CMV) accidents across Kansas. Most end in fatality. Their website allows trucking lawyers and the public to obtain preliminary crash logs which contain injury and fatality information. Their reports and opinions help our semi-truck injury lawyers prove fault.
What Are the Most Dangerous Roads in Garden City and Southwest Kansas?
The 2021 Kansas Traffic Crash Facts indicate that Kansas had 424 fatal crashes in 2021 and 17,479 injury related vehicle crashes. Finney County had 615 vehicular crashes that caused 150 injuries and 5 fatalities in 2021. These accidents include semi-trucks and commercial truck accidents following a truck crash.
The Topeka Capital-Journal studied the most dangerous safety corridors in Kansas and published a news article about four of the most dangerous corridors on Kansas Highways. They found that Garden City and Finney County residents have a dangerous corridor at the US-83/US 50 corridor from Plymell north through Garden City and west to the Holcomb exit.
US 50 in and around Garden City has always been the place of catastrophic tractor-trailer crashes with smaller motor vehicle accidents. Semi-accident shuts down US-50 bypass in Garden City Highway 83 is another highway near Garden City where large semi-truck accidents occur. Wichita woman killed in car-semi crash near Garden City.
In Garden City, US Business 50 is also known as East Fulton Street and is a major trucking route that heads east-west towards Holcomb and continues west through Lakin, Syracuse, and other small towns as it approaches Lamar, Colorado.
The entire stretch of US-50 is dangerous. It always been known to be one of the most dangerous highways in Kansas because of the two-lane road which has the highest rate of head-on collisions and the heaviest big-truck volume per the Lawrence Journal-World US 50 among state’s most dangerous highways
Other dangerous roads and highways in and around Garden City are:
- US-400 runs mainly east-west.
- US-156 is a trucking route which runs northeast-southwest.
- Jones Avenue is a trucking route leading to the local Peterbilt of Garden City tractor-trailer dealership.
- Railroad Avenue is a favored trucking route for cattle haulers traveling to and from Hi Plains Feed.
Finney County residents are frequent victims of trucking accidents due to the agricultural and ranching industry in Southwest Kansas. If you or a loved one in the Garden City area have been injured or suffered the death of a loved one the Truck Accident Lawyers Group and Bull Attorneys can provide legal assistance and representation. There is never a legal fee unless we win for you.
What Are the Causes of Semi-truck Accidents in the Garden City and Finney County Area of Southwest Kansas?
The main causes of truck and tractor-trailer accidents in Garden City and Southwest Kansas are:
- Speeding over the posted speed limit in heavy cattle trucks and cargo transportation semis.
- Fatigued driving by truck drivers.
- Drunk driving and intoxicated driving.
- Drivers who follow too close to smaller motor vehicles.
- Abrupt lane changes by truck drivers failing to give warning.
- Crossing over the center line due to high winds pushing trailers over the center line of highways.
- Semis driving tractor-trailers in severe weather and high wind or storm condition which require they stop and wait until the weather is safe to drive.
- Overloaded trucks and tractor-trailers with heavy cattle or trailers overloaded with grain that tip over and cause rollover accidents with cars and pickups.
- Tractor-trailers and farm trucks travel through smoke caused by farmers burning fields as they get ready to plant seeds.
Why Do Truck Drivers Drive While Tired and Fatigued?
According to the FMCSA, Kansas had a significant number of commercial motor vehicle (CMV) crashes in 2022 with 1908 commercial motor vehicle accidents leading to 75 fatalities. FMCSA Kansas Crash Statistics
The FMCSA provides driving tips to truck drives of CMV, writing that 13 percent of large truck crashes are a result of fatigued driving. CMV driving tips for driver fatigue
- Truck drivers drive while tired and fatigued for a variety of reasons:
- Trucking companies create tight schedules for pickup and delivery called on-time delivery which pushes truck drivers to exceed maximum hours of service driving time limits.
- Truck drivers who deliver a load late can be fined, suspended or terminated.
- Dispatch officers in motor carriers routinely dispatch truck drivers with insufficient remaining time to legally make a delivery.
- Motor carriers who are small to medium size companies resist using GPS tracking to monitor routes and hours of service and are aware their drivers are over the legal hours allowed.
- Truck drivers are usually paid by the mile and load so the longer they drive the more money they make.
- Motor carriers fail to properly train their truck drivers on the FMCSR hours of service limits in orientation and periodic safety meetings.
Fatigued truck drivers cause hundreds of thousands of semi-truck accidents each year, especially in Southwest Kansas. Hire experienced Finney County truck accidents lawyers by calling TALG at 620-690-0600.
How Heavy Can Tractor-trailers in Kansas Weigh to Legally Travel on Kansas Highways?
According to the Kansas Highway Patrol the maximum gross weight for a tractor-trailer to weigh on Kansas interstate highways is a maximum of 80,000 pounds. When tractor-trailers exceed that maximum gross weight they have problems with large truck crashes caused from braking issues for overweight tractor-trailers. Their stopping distance is much longer than for a legally approved weight.
Overloaded semi-trucks cause all of the following:
- Jackknife truck accidents where the trailer sweeps perpendicular to the tractor from too much weight and collides with vehicles in oncoming lanes of travel.
- Rollover accidents where overloading causes the trailer to shift back and forth across the lanes of the traveled highway.
- Rearend truck crashes caused by insufficient braking with too much weight to stop.
Our Finney County truck accident law firm always tries to establish the root cause of a large truck crash and when a truck driver operates overweight, we know it can cause serious bodily injuries and wrongful death. We bring legal claims against the motor carrier and when some other company overloads the trailer an additional negligence claim exists against them.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I avoid having a car accident with a semi-truck? Safety tips to avoid accidents with semi-trucks:
- Stay out of the blind spot of semi-trucks. Large trucks have blind spots in the front, rear and on both sides.
- Make wide passes and do not drive beside tractor-trailers. Truck drivers make abrupt lane changes so never drive beside them.
- Avoid driving in high winds and bad weather. Truck drivers have tight schedules making them drive through high winds and bad weather where they can be blown across the highway causing head-on collisions.
- Leave space between your vehicle and semi-trucks. Truck drivers with heavy loads take additional time to stop which means merging in front of them without leaving space between your vehicles is dangerous.
- Watch for wide turns. Tractor-trailers need room to make turns and often turn right or left from the adjacent lane so watch for turn signals and indications of their intent to make a turn or change lanes.
How can you tell if a truck driver is tired? Watch for signs of truck driver fatigue:
- Slowly swerving back and forth in lanes of travel.
- Accelerating and decelerating back and forth.
- The trucks brake lights repeatedly go on and off.
- Driver is difficult to see in windows and rear-view mirrors.
- Running stop signs and red lights.
- Driving quickly towards stopped or slowing traffic.
Should I report a speeding or swerving truck driver?
Yes, you should report a speeding or swerving truck driver or following too closely. You can call 911 and describe the actions of the truck providing identifying information like signs, business names, logos, colors, and DOT numbers on the truck or trailer to prevent injuries to yourself and other drivers. You can also call 1-888-DOT-SAFT.
Contact Garden City Office
Locations We Serve
With physical offices in Kansas and Texas, the Truck Accident Lawyers Group is ready to represent injured people who have had a motor vehicle and truck accident anywhere in the United States. Make sure you hire an experienced truck accident lawyer who understands the safety rules under the FMCSR.
