http://www.hg.org/article.asp?id=29646
 
Research has shown the top three causes of semi-truck accident. Some of the major causes of truck and semi-truck accidents include:

• Driver tiredness and fatigue
• Poor or faulty maintenance practices
• Distracted driving
• Technical malfunction
• Brake failure or out of service brakes
• Tire blowouts
• Override accidents
• Runaway trailers
• Overloaded trailers/ semi-trucks
• Jack-knifing
• Driver error
• Violation of the Motor Carrier Safety Regulations

Of the above causes, the three top reasons are the causes of trucks and semi-trucks accidents very often than others. These are:

• Driver tiredness and fatigue: It is always a very stressful job driving a semi-truck and a common practice to pay drivers by the mile, which in essence means that the more distance a driver travels, the higher the paycheck. Great. But on the downside, this sometimes pushes the drivers to stay behind the wheel far longer than safe. Commercial drivers tend to set and meet very unreasonable deadlines, which eventually lead to tiredness, fatigue, and being sleeping while driving and the loss of concentration can be deadly.

awalleyeguy
http://www.hg.org/article.asp?id=29646

Seriously, you use an Law firm site for your information?
 
How about we get the causes from a Government study?
 
http://ai.fmcsa.dot.gov/ltccs/default.asphttp://i58.tinypic.com/2a8npqf.jpg
 
Click on the Report to Congress link. Driver fatigue is 4th from the bottom when the crash factor is do to the driver.
 

 
At least this Law Firm tells some truth. Pretty shady link you used.
 
http://www.cssfirm.com/20...uses-of-truck-crashes/
 

1. Surprisingly, driver fatigue was not as common as expected. Instead, drug use was the most common cause of accident. In 26% of the crashes, prescription drugs or illicit drugs affected the truck driver’s reaction time.
2. Speeding was also a common cause of large truck crashes, found in 23% of accidents. The force of impact from an 80,000-pound truck is made more deadly with each mile of increased speed.
3. Many truck drivers are unfamiliar with the areas they travel. For this reason, it is not surprising that 22% of the accidents involved a driver not familiar with the roads he or she was traveling.
4. Prescription and illicit drugs are not the only drug-related problems for trucking accidents. In 18% of the crashes, over-the-counter medications contributed to the accident.
5. Truck drivers are trained on checking blind spots and carefully checking all sides of the vehicle before making turns or other maneuvers. Still, many forget their training. In 14% of the accidents, at least one cause was the driver’s failure to check blind spots properly.
6. What was once assumed the most common cause of large truck accidents, driver fatigue, was present in 13% of the accidents studied. While not as common as expected, driver fatigue still happens often and causes many accidents.
7. Drivers often forget simple safety measures such as using a signal before turning. In 9% of the accidents studied, the driver engaged in some illegal maneuver, like failing to use a turn signal.
8. Distracted driving can also be a problem for truck drivers. In the study, 8% of the crashes involved drivers whose attention was taken away from the road by events outside the truck. Common distractions include roadwork or accidents.
9. Although drivers often try to evade crashes, big rigs are difficult to maneuver. Drivers who underestimated the level of evasive action needed contributed to 7% of the accidents.
10. Road rage is not a problem limited to car drivers. Aggressive driving contributed to 7% of the accidents in the study. Because of the size and bulk of large trucks, drivers who take part in such behavior cause deadly crashes.

 

 Drug use? I suppose non of that is to overcome fatigue. Everyone should also realize idiots in cars is also a factor. Also driving a truck is a difficult job.
I do not currently drive a truck, but I do still drive a lot for work (60K+ a year just for work) and IMO driving makes you tired. 

kram, you know your stuff when it comes to commercial driving.

I had one accident myself. Fortunately it was very minor; but could have been major in different circumstances. Mine was due to out of adjustment brakes.

Against the popular belief of this forum, in the USA, there is little incentive for a driver to lie on their log books. Why? No driver wants to deal with the stress and fatigue in the long term. There are a bazillion driving positions available at various companies and if your employer pushes you to drive longer and faster, you just quit and go work somewhere else. Additionally, it is illegal to exceed hours of service rules and therefore most employers wouldn't want to get caught even attempting to push their drivers into doing something wrong. Lawsuit, fines, etc.

USA driver hours of service rules summary:
- at least 30 minute break in 8 hour period. additional tire check stops (2 hours / 100 miles) required for hazmat vehicles offer a little extra get out and move time.
- must have 10 consecutive hours off duty before driving
- can only drive 11 hours a day
- no driving after 14 hours of coming on duty (in case some hours were on duty not driving)
- can only drive 60 hours in 7 days or 70 hours in 8 days
- must have 34 consecutive hours off duty to reset drive time for the 60/7 or 70/8 above
- 34 hour reset must inclue two periods of time of 1-5 am (no staying up all night and sleeping all day)
- 34 hour reset can only be applied once a week (even if you had multiple otherwise qualifying 34 hour resets in a week)


Also, weigh stations track trucks very efficiently. They can tell pretty accurately how long you have been driving and how fast you have been driving just by your times in and out of weigh stations. Trucks have transponders in them with unique identification codes to make automated surveilance easy for weigh station officers.

kram36

rjohnson11
In Europe the laws regarding truck drivers and rest (sleep) are very strict and the fines are very high if violated.

The US have very strict laws on hours for drivers too. The fines are very high and are given to both the driver and the company he is working for.

Yes.....but it still happens all the time. Regulations or not. That is like saying there are laws in place that make it illegal to kill someone, or to litter, or to speed.

A very common mantra:

"Show the company what they want to see and don't get caught by the DOT".

There are some shady high pressure carriers, some good carriers that know their drivers take creative measures when it comes to log books and look the other way.

Obviously as we move to total GPS tracking "cooking the books" will become a thing of the past.....but there will still be some way to get around it if the carrier is into that kind of crookedness.

kaninja

kram36

rjohnson11
In Europe the laws regarding truck drivers and rest (sleep) are very strict and the fines are very high if violated.

The US have very strict laws on hours for drivers too. The fines are very high and are given to both the driver and the company he is working for.

Yes.....but it still happens all the time. Regulations or not. That is like saying there are laws in place that make it illegal to kill someone, or to litter, or to speed.

A very common mantra:

"Show the company what they want to see and don't get caught by the DOT".

There are some shady high pressure carriers, some good carriers that know their drivers take creative measures when it comes to log books and look the other way.

Obviously as we move to total GPS tracking "cooking the books" will become a thing of the past.....but there will still be some way to get around it if the carrier is into that kind of crookedness.

I'm not saying drivers don't break the rules. Like ty_ger07 said, you have options to get away from a high pressure company, lots of them. I could have went into Feeders (big rigs) at UPS, but that just wasn't my thing. UPS is known to have the best CDL training classes in the United States, but even with 28 years service I would have been low seniority in Feeders and would be either stuck to knight driving or parking trailers. Neither appealed to me as I'm to used to moving my body all the time, nor does driving one of those heavy vehicles with all the idiots on the road. People just don't realize these trucks don't stop quickly, pull right over in front of them, pull out right in front of them, all kinds of stupid stuff happens.


Feeders drivers kept telling me, come back to Feeders it's so much more lax there and easier on the body. The going over the DOT hours will not happen with a UPS feeder driver. If for some reason the driver might go over, they are instructed to get off the road, get off the clock, UPS will send another driver to finish the run.

my opinion idiots in cars who travel to close oor try to get in front, pass the trucks that are driving the speed limit my dads a otr driver
example car crossed his path when he was breaking and took away his safe distance now he has to fix his front bumper ,no ticket on him due to witnesses ,but he says tiredness is the cause and inexperienced drivers is number 2
example again another trucker backed into is truck while parked at a loading dock

No question idiots in cars cause a lot of problems.

I have been a driver for a while now, been a CDL instructor for a few months, you wouldn't believe how many drivers don't even do their pretrip/post trip inspection, only takes about 10 minutes.
 
whenever i get tired i just stop, drink some coffee or shut down for the day. I use e logs to keep track of everything. Just bought a 2016 freightliner cascadia evolution, gets over 9mpg average with ~44klbs in the box
 
 
also they recently changed the 34 hour restart to just has to be 34 consecutive hours and can be taken at any time.
 
in other news from what i have seen i seem to be the only trucker with a 5960x sli gtx980 build with a 4k monitor in their truck :P

evilmustang66
my opinion idiots in cars who travel to close oor try to get in front, pass the trucks that are driving the speed limit my dads a otr driver
example car crossed his path when he was breaking and took away his safe distance now he has to fix his front bumper ,no ticket on him due to witnesses ,but he says tiredness is the cause and inexperienced drivers is number 2
example again another trucker backed into is truck while parked at a loading dock

This ^. Completely this. this is normally the #1 reason which causes accidents, and causes alot of jack-knifes, tards in general.