Each time you get on the road to run errands with your children, you are taking a risk. Many people don’t think about the risks that are associated with driving simply because it’s such a commonplace activity. When you drive with your kids, you put their lives in other driver’s hands. You can’t control how others drive. When you drive near semitrucks, you and your children face even greater danger because of the size and weight of these big rigs.

Accident causes vary

Semitruck accidents can be caused by the road conditions, driver error or equipment failure. The icy roads in the winter and wet roads in the summer pose special dangers for large trucks using the Eisenhower or Kennedy Expressways.

Potholes and other obstacles on surface streets can also cause collisions. Driver error, which can include driving too fast for conditions, driving while fatigued or distracted can all lead to accidents.

Equipment failure is another concern. For example, a semitruck without properly working brakes might not be able to stop when it comes up on a traffic jam along Lake Shore Drive.

Injuries can be severe

The injuries that occur in a semitruck accident can be severe, and in some cases, even fatal. Illinois divides accidents into categories depending on the severity of the injuries. Minor to moderate injuries are classified as injuries. Incapacitating injuries are classified as “A injuries” in the statistics and fatal accidents are denoted as such. Data that was released from 2014 notes that there were 11,585 crashes involving semitrucks. Of those, 86 were fatal, 387 involved “A” injuries while 1,902 were injury crashes.

Interestingly, the overwhelming majority of the fatal accidents – 60 – occurred on rural roads. Alternatively, most injury accidents occurred on urban roads and most of the “A” injury accidents happened on rural roads. Obviously, these accidents can occur anywhere the big rigs are driven, so parents must always be cognizant of what semitrucks are doing on the road.

Compensation is possible

When the semitruck driver is the one who is at-fault for the accident, it’s possible to seek compensation. Determining the cause of the accident is important in order to bolster your case.

Your personal injury attorney can subpoena the trucker’s log book, cellphone records and other evidence that provides clues to what happened just prior to and during the accident. This information can also determine which parties can be held accountable for the injuries that you and your child suffered in the accident.