Texas has thousands of miles of highways and include such major interstates such as I-10 running across the state east and west, I -45 and I -35 running north and south and major highways such other major highways as US 290 from Houston to Austin. Thousands of 18 wheeler tractor trailers travel each of these highways every day.
According to the 2007 annual report prepared by the Texas Department of Transportation we have over 360,000 registered commercial trucks operating in the US and over 50,000 registered Motor Carriers. The growth in the transportation business is expected to grown annually by double digits for the next several years. This all adds up to a huge number of trucks to be regulated and finite governmental resources to monitor carriers.
It has been reported that over 400 fatalities occurred in Texas due to commercial vehicle accidents in one year alone. According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in 2006 alone we had 4,321 fatal accidents in the US involving commercial vehicles.
Most serious injury cases involving commercial vehicles on interstate highways are investigated by The Texas Highway Patrol which has a special accident reconstruction team equipped with the latest mapping and surveying equipment. In serious cases the Texas Highway patrol will "reconstruct" the accident and many times the results many come into evidence in a truck accident lawsuit. You can be assured that the insurance company insuring the trucking company will be at the scene of an accident involving a wrongful death with in 24 hours of learning about the accident. It is critical that the victim or the victim's family have representatives early on who are involved in the investigation of the accident before evidence disappears or vehicles repaired.
Some helpful links are:
http://www.txdps.state.tx.us - the Texas DPS
http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov - the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administratio
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