Commercial Driver's License

The first step to winning a truck accident case is to determine what a trained CDL driver should have done under the circumstances.   A Board-Certified Truck Accident Attorney has demonstrated a thorough understanding of truck driving rules and regulations.  The Maryland Driver’s Manual is less than 50 pages.  The industries’ most popular Tractor-Trailer Driver Training Manual by J.J. Keller is 864 pages.  Applying the rules of the road for car driving to a truck accident case is a common error. The 864-page Tractor-Trailer Driver Training Manual is filled with the safety rules that are meant to protect the public and prevent accidents.   The FMSCA requires every commercial motor vehicle driver to know:

● Safe operation regulations.

● Safe vehicle control systems.

● Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Control Systems.

● Basic vehicle control.

● Shifting transmissions.

● Backing.

● Visual Search techniques.

● Communication techniques and procedures.

● Speed management

● Space Management.

● Safe nighttime operation of a commercial motor vehicle.

● Extreme Driving Conditions.

● Perceiving Hazards.

● Emergency Maneuvers.

● Skid control and Recovery.

● Interplay between Cargo and vehicle control.

● Vehicle Inspections.

● Transportation of Hazardous Materials.

● Mountain Driving.

● Fatigue and awareness.

● Air brake knowledge covering seven areas.

● Combination vehicles.

The commercial motor vehicle driver must also demonstrate the following skills:

● Pre-trip vehicle inspection skills.

● Basic vehicle control skills.

● Safe on-road driving skills.

● Ability to display such skills under realistic on-street conditions.

The Federal government has specific endorsements for drivers of school buses, transporters of hazardous materials, trucks with double or triple trailers, passenger transport vehicles, and tankers. These requirements are far more extensive than those required for a standard driver’s license.

THE COMMERCIAL DRIVER’S MANUAL IS ONLY A STARTING POINT

Every commercial truck driver should have a copy of the federal motor carrier safety regulations in their glove box. The industry sells pocket copies of the regulations at a nominal cost. In fact, many commercial driver’s manuals advise drivers to keep a copy of the regulations with their truck. Large commercial trucking companies frequently provide in-house training and materials on driver safety. It is important to have an experienced truck accident attorney to investigate the applicable rules and all the sources of those rules. Many driving skills are vehicle specific. A licensed CDL driver often requires on the job training to drive specialty vehicles like tanker trucks, Super Dump trucks, and trucks carrying cargo that is unstable or has an unusual weight distribution.

Commercial trucking has a very high turnover rate among drivers. Due to this rapid turnover, it is not uncommon to encounter inexperienced drivers and drivers that have been terminated by motor carriers.

Truck drivers often violate applicable rules and regulations.

Every day, we observe truck drivers failing to follow the rules. These violations typically appear like normal driving to the public. Here are a couple of examples that illustrate that commercial truck drivers must follow a different set of rules. We should expect drivers of 80,000-pound vehicles to take extra care.
On busy roadways such as Maryland Routes 2, 3, 40, 214, 355 etc. with regular stop lights, it is expected to see bumper to bumper traffic. Car drivers pull ahead and match the speed of traffic as soon as some space ahead opens. A truck driver can’t stop as quickly as a car and a truck driver must leave more space to stop. Other cars will often change lanes into the open space. What is a truck driver supposed to do? The correct answer is to try to maintain the stopping space by driving a few miles per hour slower than surrounding traffic. Thus, when that car changes lanes into your stopping space as traffic stops the truck driver is already falling further behind and has maintained the necessary space to stop.

Car drivers keep an eye on the car driving ahead. Truck drivers are trained to scan traffic ahead both near and far. A trained commercial truck driver must scan a vast area of the roadway to anticipate the driving conditions that he will encounter and prepare accordingly. After an accident, a witness can often be heard that the truck driver did nothing wrong because he could not have stopped that big truck with so little time to react. The correct question should be, had the truck driver been driving at a proper speed under commercial driving standards and scanning the roadway ahead would this crash have occurred? Disputes of this type almost always require the intervention of a lawyer.