Published by Carabin Shaw – San Antonio Personal Injury Attorney

Carabin Shaw is one of the leading truck accident lawyers in South and Central Texas. They have extensive experience in truck accident cases, focusing on securing compensation for clients’ medical bills, property damage, and pain and suffering. Specialization: Personal injury, car accidents, wrongful death, truck/18-wheeler accidents. Why choose them?: Carabin Shaw offers a free initial consultation, over 34 years of experience and their team is known for fighting aggressively for their clients’ rights.

Truck Driver Fatigue and 18-Wheeler Accidents in Texas

As truck accident lawyers, it is not uncommon for our team to review potential wrongful death claims involving driver fatigue. We see this pattern repeatedly in tractor-trailer collisions where the truck driver fabricated logbook entries and drove far beyond the hours federal law allows. Many of these cases involve demonstrated sleep loss, sometimes combined with the use of amphetamines, methamphetamines, or other stimulants the driver took to push through exhaustion and stay on the road longer. The results are predictable and devastating — catastrophic crashes that leave families shattered and victims dealing with injuries that will follow them for the rest of their lives.

Fatigue does not just make a driver tired. It makes a driver dangerous. Scientific research has established a direct correlation between sleep loss and the kind of serious impairment we normally associate with drunk driving. If you or someone you love was hurt in a collision with a commercial truck and you suspect the driver was fatigued, our 18-wheeler accident attorneys can investigate the circumstances, obtain the driver’s records, and determine whether violations of federal hours-of-service regulations contributed to the crash.

Sleep Deprivation Impairs Drivers Like Alcohol Does

Studies published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and other safety organizations have shown that the impairment caused by sleep loss and extended working hours mirrors the impairment caused by alcohol consumption. The longer a person stays awake, the slower their perception and reaction times become. A driver who has been awake for 18 hours experiences impairment roughly equivalent to a blood alcohol concentration of 0.05 percent. At 24 hours without sleep, that impairment climbs to approximately 0.10 percent — well above the 0.08 percent threshold that defines legal intoxication across the country.

Getting too little sleep produces similar effects. A driver who slept four hours or fewer before getting behind the wheel of an 80,000-pound tractor-trailer operates with reaction times and decision-making abilities comparable to someone who has been drinking. Our lawyers know how to obtain that evidence and use it to demonstrate that a truck driver’s fatigue made them just as dangerous as if they had been legally drunk.

The Scope of the Problem on Texas Roads

Large trucks make up a small fraction of the vehicles on American highways, but they account for a disproportionate share of fatal crashes. According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, large trucks represented roughly 5 percent of all registered vehicles and about 10 percent of total vehicle miles traveled, yet they were involved in 13 percent of all traffic fatalities in recent years. More than 5,000 people die in crashes involving large trucks annually across the United States, and tens of thousands more suffer serious injuries.

Here in Texas, the numbers are even more alarming. The Texas Department of Transportation reported that commercial motor vehicle crashes killed 806 people in 2024. Texas leads the nation in truck accident fatalities year after year because of the sheer volume of freight moving through the state on Interstate 10, Interstate 35, Interstate 20, and the heavily traveled corridors connecting the border to major distribution hubs.

Why Truck Drivers Push Through Fatigue

The trucking industry’s pay structure creates powerful incentives for drivers to stay on the road longer than they should. Many truck drivers are paid by the mile rather than by the hour, which means time spent resting is time spent not earning money. Compare the trucking industry to commercial aviation — airline pilots typically fly around 30 hours per month and face strict rest requirements enforced by federal regulators. Truck drivers, by contrast, routinely drive 250 to 300 hours per month. Federal hours-of-service regulations limit drivers to 11 hours of driving within a 14-hour window after 10 consecutive hours off duty, but those limits still allow for punishing schedules that accumulate fatigue over days and weeks.

In our practice, we regularly uncover evidence of falsified logbooks, manipulated electronic logging devices, and pressure from dispatchers to deliver loads on schedules that cannot be met without violating federal law. When drivers cut corners on rest to meet impossible deadlines, innocent people pay the price.

Electronic Logging Devices Changed the Game — But Not Completely

Federal law now requires most commercial motor vehicles to use electronic logging devices that automatically record driving time based on the truck’s engine data. The ELD mandate, which took full effect in 2019, was designed to eliminate the paper logbook fraud that allowed drivers to hide their true hours for decades. In practice, the technology has limitations. Drivers can still manipulate the system by logging time under a different status, using a second driver’s credentials, or exploiting the unassigned driving time that ELDs record when no driver is logged in. When a crash occurs and we obtain the ELD data, our lawyers know how to analyze it for inconsistencies that reveal the driver was on the road far longer than the official records suggest.

Holding Fatigued Drivers and Their Employers Accountable

When a truck driver causes a crash because they were too exhausted to react in time, liability does not stop with the driver. The trucking company that employed them, the dispatcher who pressured them to meet an unrealistic schedule, and the broker who arranged the load may all share responsibility. Our lawyers investigate every link in the chain to identify every party whose negligence contributed to the collision. If you lost a family member or suffered serious injuries in a crash with a commercial truck and you believe fatigue played a role, contact our office today for a free consultation and let us put our experience to work for you.