18-Wheeler Crashes into Home, Injuring 1 in Athens, Texas

According to CBS 19, the driver of an 18-wheeler lost control of the rig and crashed into a home, injuring one occupant in Athens, Texas. The accident occurred around 8:30 a.m. Thursday, December 1 when the truck driver lost control on Highway 31 and crashed into the living room of the home. The home was severely damaged and one occupant was taken to a local hospital with injuries.

Commentary
My goodness. The family is lucky only injuries were incurred in the accident. Though I cannot be certain, more than two decades of experience handling truck accidents allows me to guess that a possible cause of this accident is a trucker who fell asleep. This, or other causes, are only proven through the use of an independent investigation, which would determine liability and produce a strategy moving forward for potential civil remedies.
If driver inattentiveness led to this accident, the trucker could certainly be at fault in the accident. That is probably the most apparent outcome from the accident. However, from handling many of these cases I know that commercial vehicle accidents almost always implicate another entity. Meaning, rarely is one party completely at fault. For example, let's stay with driver inattentiveness for a moment. Truck drivers are placed under enormous stress by their employers to deliver on time, or better yet, before the delivery estimate. This leads to mistakes on the road or overextended truckers. Through the legal concept of respondeat superior, an owner can be held partially liable for the actions of their employees. Think of it this way, if this concept were not recognized in Texas, employers could encourage malicious behavior from their employees with no means of recourse.
It should also be noted that 18-wheeler possess thousands of components that work in concert to successfully perform a haul. Any time a trucker is said to have lost control, it is in the best interest of everyone to determine if it was driver or mechanical error. Blame is often automatically assigned to a truck driver, but in many instances, they were at the whim of an unserviced vehicle. This type of contingency could fault an owner responsible for maintaining the rig, or a company who is tasked with providing said maintenance.

Tyler Truck Accident Attorney Michael Grossman