When a truck accident occurs, the log book records of the involved truck driver can be a very important and revealing piece of evidence regarding the accident. Such log books can shed light on many important issues, such as how long the truck driver had been on-duty prior to the accident and whether the truck driver had been behind the wheel longer than they should have been.
Sadly though, log book records are not always as accurate as they should be. Sometimes, mistakes are made in such records. Sadly, there are even some instances in which truck drivers intentionally falsify such records. In one of our articles, “New Federal Hours of Service Requirements: Is the Solution Now Part of the Problem?,” we discussed how truck drivers may sometimes have economic incentives to “fudge” their log books in order to skirt hours of service rules and how truck companies aren’t always as vigilant in preventing such records falsification as they should be.
Thus, when investigating truck accidents, it not only can be important to look into the log book records of the involved truck driver, but also to carefully scrutinize the accuracy of the records and to look into other evidence regarding the truck driver’s pre-accident activity. It can sometimes take all different sorts of evidence to get a true idea of what caused a truck accident and who was responsible for it.
Truck accident attorneys understand how important in-depth investigations can be following a tractor-trailer accident and can help victims of truck accidents look into the various different types of evidence related to their accident to try to help uncover how the accident occurred and whether any truck company or truck driver misconduct was behind the accident.