I Was Injured In A Collision With A Truck. Why Does My Lawyer Want To See The Driver’s Logbooks?

Unfortunately, there have been many terrible accidents in the New Orleans area involving large trucks. While some of these accidents have other causes, the National Transportation Safety Board has found that driver fatigue contributes to 30 to 40 percent of large truck accidents.

The federal government strictly regulates the number of hours a truck driver may spend on the road and how long they may remain on duty – even if they are not driving. For example, truck drivers are not supposed to spend more than eleven hours driving after having completed ten consecutive hours off duty.

Drivers are required to maintain a logbook documenting time spent driving, as well as their time off duty and in the sleeper berth. An accurate logbook may help your lawyer determine if the truck driver was fatigued at the time of the collision.

Even if the driver was “cheating” and not keeping an accurate logbook, the information in the logbook may still be helpful to your case. If the entries in a logbook look suspicious, your lawyer may be able to examine issues such as whether it is realistic for the truck driver to have covered the distances driven in the time claimed in the logbook. False entries in the logbook would help establish that the driver knew he was fatigued, but chose to ignore the law and continue driving

If you have been injured in a collision with a truck and have any questions, please feel free to call us at (504) 527-8767.