Lack of Driver Training

Some commercial truck accidents in Los Angeles are caused by lack of driver training. Trucking companies and agencies must perform an adequate background check on drivers before hiring them, and they must make sure that the driver undergoes proper driving training and safety training. A trucking company or agency that fails to make sure a truck driver has a clean record and knows how to respond and operate the truck when different surprising events occur on the road may be held responsible for a truck accident. In general, it can be helpful for a Los Angeles truck accident lawyer to be able to bring a trucking company or agency into a lawsuit because the injuries associated with truck accidents are so severe and catastrophic that a truck driver's insurance policy may not be able to cover the enormity of loss experienced by a truck accident victim. Trucking companies and agencies, on the other hand, usually have sufficient insurance to fully compensate a truck accident victim.

A trucking company or agency can be held vicariously liable for its employees' careless driving. Vicarious liability is a form of indirect liability, in which an employer is responsible for an employee's negligence when the employee was on the job and in the course and scope of employment when the accident occurred. A trucking company also has its own independent duty to others to hire qualified drivers and adequately train and supervise them.

A trucking company can be held responsible for negligent hiring, supervision or training. In a negligent training case, a plaintiff will need to establish that the trucking company: (1) had a duty towards him or her to adequately train the driver, (2) the trucking company breached that duty, (3) the breach actually and proximately caused the plaintiff's damages, and (4) actual damages.

The duty of the trucking company to adequately train its employees is relatively easy to establish. Showing a breach of that duty and showing that the breach caused the accident can be more challenging. A diligent attorney will need to do some digging into a trucking company's policies and procedures and whether they were followed with regard to a particular driver in order to determine whether the trucking company trained the driver in how to handle wide turns, how to check blind spots, safe practices while on the road, how to properly load a tractor trailer or other commercial truck, and how to minimize damages if an accident is unavoidable.

In California, causation is most often established nowadays using the "substantial factor" test. A substantial factor is one that a reasonable person would consider to have contributed to the injuries at issue. A substantial factor cannot be remote or trivial, but it need not be the only factor to be considered a substantial factor. However, a lack of training would not be a substantial factor if the same harm would have happened without the conduct. An experienced truck accident attorney will look at whether a truck driver would have acted the same way no matter what his or her training was in the situation, and consider all possible grounds for holding a trucking company or agency responsible.

Someone that doesn't know the ins and outs of the trucking industry may overlook the issue of driver training and the agency relationship. Since the injuries arising out of a truck accident case are significant, it is important to retain an attorney with specific experience in truck accident cases. If you were seriously injured in a Los Angeles truck accident possibly because of lack of driver training, let our experienced lawyers sue the driver and the trucking company or agency on your behalf. We represent clients in Rancho Cucamonga, Temecula, and Riverside. Contact us at (866) 422-7222 or via our online form for a free, no-obligation consultation.