Fayetteville Personal Injury Law Legal Blog

North Carolina residents know that winter is one of the most dangerous seasons for auto accidents. Nevertheless, they have a responsibility year-round to keep themselves and others on the road out of harm's way, and they must carry this out through safe driving techniques. Below are just a few of the basics.

First of all, icy and snowy conditions require drivers to slow down. The faster people drive, the less traction the tires have. Individuals must also increase the gap between themselves and the vehicles in front of them. It should be a distance of at least five or six seconds. Then drivers must learn to accelerate and brake not harshly, but gently. Accelerate with a slight motion of the heel.

If you are like most people who live in North Carolina, when you hear or see a report giving an account of a motor vehicle accident involving a tractor-trailer or other very large commercial vehicle, you may want to better understand the cause of the incident. Concerns about safe operation of these big rigs is understandable as a crash in which they are involved can be horrific for pedestrians or people in normal-sized passenger vehicles which are much smaller than these trucks.

Fatigue has long been identified as a significant issue for truckers and combatting fatigue is why the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration enacted its Hours of Service rule a few years ago. This rule places caps on the number of hours truckers can drive each week and each day. The rule also outlines provisions for break periods. To encourage compliance with this rule, the FMCSA has also instituted its electronic logging device rule.

North Carolina residents like you have to share the streets with all manner of drivers. But truckers can be particularly dangerous simply because of the size of the vehicle they operate. Due to that, we at the Law Offices of Wade E. Byrd, P.A., will discuss why truck driver fatigue can be an even bigger danger than fatigue in non-truck drivers.

Truck driver fatigue can be a huge issue as truck drivers will typically suffer from fatigue more than an average driver. This is due to the nature of the trucking industry, which at times rewards its drivers for somewhat risky behaviors. The faster a driver covers greater distances, the more money they can make for their time. This leads to drivers hitting the road even when they should be resting instead.

North Carolina residents like you rely on your vehicles to transport you safely wherever you need to go. Unfortunately, safety-related defects can cause once-safe cars to become high risks. Today, we'll take a look at how to identify a safety defect and how it can contribute to your chances of getting into a crash.

FindLaw defines safety defects as any defect involving car parts, or the entirety of a vehicle, that hamper its safety in any way. If a part fails to reach the standards of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, it may be recalled. These failures usually affect components of a car that are critical to your safety, or critical to the car’s functionality. For example, safety belts, airbags, steering and brakes are often the subject of recalls.