Truck & Auto Accidents - Brake Failure - Nationwide Trucking Accident Lawyers Attorneys
STEVEN GORDON: We try to establish what was the cause of the accident. Sometimes the brakes of the truck or the trailer are the cause of the accident.
[GRAPHIC: Brakes]
STEVEN GORDON: And it's imperative that your truck accident lawyers understand this. The first thing that you need to understand about brakes is they're not fixed on the road. There are many different types of brake problems.
[GRAPHIC: Brake lines]
STEVEN GORDON: There's most trucks use air brakes and air brakes require sealed lines.
[GRAPHIC: Brake line connection]
STEVEN GORDON: Oftentimes there'll be a leak in a line. And that sort of stuff is supposed to be detected before the trucker gets on the road.
[GRAPHIC: Man with clipboard]
STEVEN GORDON: The requirement is that they do what's called a pre-trip inspection, part of that pre-trip inspection are the brakes. Oftentimes a trucker will, let's say, have bad brakes and stay on the road.
[GRAPHIC: Mirror view]
STEVEN GORDON: He knows it, but he just wants to keep on going. Because obviously maintenance costs money and they don't want to spend the money. The truck company is supposed to take care of its trucks. If it doesn't take care of its trucks, it can be held liable.
[GRAPHIC: Truck on roadway]
STEVEN GORDON: But the trucker ultimately is the one that's the buck stops with in a sense because he's the one or she's the one that's on the roadway with this 70,000 pound machine that can turn into a killing machine at any given moment. We have experts that we call upon that are literally truck brake experts.
[GRAPHIC: Overturned truck cab]
STEVEN GORDON: They come, they assess the brakes and they do what's necessary to determine was the cause of this accident a braking issue. If it was a braking issue, what was the problem with the brakes and was that the cause of the accident. Brakes can cause other things. Like uneven braking, for instance, can cause jackknifing of the, of the truck.
[GRAPHIC: Skid marks]
STEVEN GORDON: And oftentimes skid marks at a accident scene will oftentimes tell whether or not a particular tire engaged or brake engaged stopping the tire.
Finally, bad brakes can increase the stopping distance of the vehicle. So for instance if he-if the trucker had good brakes they could have stopped in time. But if they have bad brakes, they cannot stop in time. And so bad brakes and poor maintenance of brakes are an issue that is almost always present in a truck accident case and they need to be assessed properly by your lawyers and by their experts.
[GRAPHIC: Gordon, Elias & Seely, L.L.P. Truck Accident Attorneys at Law Call Toll Free 1-800-773-6770 www.TruckAccidentLaw.org]
