How Black Box Data Can Help Your Truck Accident Claim
The aftermath of a Pennsylvania truck accident can leave your family with serious financial uncertainty, severe injuries, a never-ending list of doctors’ appointments, and mental trauma. When a negligent truck driver or trucking company is responsible for your injuries, a personal injury claim can help you fight for the compensation you’re entitled to.
But pursuing a truck accident claim often means going up against a large trucking company and their well-funded legal team. That’s why it’s so important to have both the evidence that can prove your claim and a truck accident attorney willing to advocate for you. When you choose Carmody and Ging, Injury & Accident Lawyers, our attorneys can take prompt steps to preserve and analyze the truck’s black box data with the help of qualified experts. Ready to learn more about your options? Call us for a free consultation.
What is a truck’s black box?
A truck’s black box, also referred to as an event data recorder, logs and stores various types of data about the truck’s performance and the driver’s behavior. When you hear about airplane crashes without any survivors who could tell the world what happened, you often hear people talk about the plane’s “black box.” This is similar to technology used in commercial trucks, and the data included in a truck’s black box can be just as valuable to accident victims and investigators.
Do all vehicles have black boxes?
Although we often talk about EDRs in the context of truck accidents, it’s important to note that trucks are not the only vehicles with EDRs. While not every vehicle has an EDR, the vast majority of newer vehicles do have some type of black box installed. However, black box data is used more often in truck crashes than other types of collisions. This is often due to the federal regulations coming into play and the heightened responsibility that truck drivers have to road users.
Data collected by black boxes
A commercial truck’s event data recorder can contain a wide range of data types that your attorney may be able to use in your accident claim. It’s important to recognize that these black boxes aren’t intended for layperson usage. They’re not like dashcams, which record video and audio data that anyone can interpret. Black boxes capture technical data that can generally only be understood and analyzed by someone who is trained to do so. The data doesn’t explicitly state what happened and how a crash happened; it collects a variety of data points, and from there, it’s up to an investigative specialist to interpret it in the context of other pieces of evidence.
That being said, a properly trained professional may be able to look at a black box and see:
- A vehicle’s speed prior to a crash
- How a driver sped up or slowed down immediately prior to a collision
- Steering wheel usage before and during a collision
- Whether a driver was using manual speed control or cruise control
- System failures that occurred, including diagnostic codes
Event data recorders do not save all of the data from a drive. They are generally triggered by a collision, at which point they capture and save all the data immediately prior to an accident and the accident itself.
How this data can support your truck accident claim
Truck accidents can be incredibly complex when compared to other types of vehicle accidents. Regardless of the speed both vehicles were driving at the time of a crash, the sheer size of a commercial truck means that the damage may be catastrophic. An event data recorder can be used to analyze any vehicle malfunctions that may have contributed to an accident, as well as any driver behaviors that may or may not have played a role.
Which types of driver behaviors may be relevant to these claims? To start, driver fatigue is a serious issue in the trucking industry. Overworked and tired drivers are such a prominent problem that the FMCSA has imposed strict regulations on how long drivers can be on the road and how often they must take breaks—we’ll explore those later. Black box data can flag signs of fatigued driving. For example, if a steering wheel was not in use immediately before a crash—even to evade a crash—that may be a sign that the driver had fallen asleep. Similarly, major changes in speed can also indicate drowsy driving and a driver unable to maintain their concentration.
Speeding is another serious issue in many truck accidents, and EDRs can go a long way in proving that speed played a role in a crash. For example, if a truck driver claims to have been driving the speed limit before a crash, and the EDR shows that they were actually driving 10 miles above the speed limit, that gives your attorney more information to work with.
When an accident occurs, it’s not uncommon for truck drivers to claim that something must have gone wrong with the truck, not their driving. Evidence from an EDR can come into play here. It will either show that a vehicle component did malfunction and point the victim to the vehicle manufacturer as a source of compensation, or it will indicate that there was no malfunction—and in that case, the victim will likely still seek compensation from the trucking company.
The importance of prompt data collection
An event data recorder’s data must be kept intact before an accident investigator can extract it using the appropriate software. Additionally, waiting too long to collect the data can result in it being lost forever. This is one reason it’s important to reach out to a truck accident attorney as soon as possible after a collision. They can use their network of expert witnesses, including accident reconstruction specialists, to gather and preserve important evidence before it is tampered with, destroyed, or lost forever.
Let’s talk about your legal options now
The team at Carmody & Ging, Injury & Accident Lawyers is here to support you as you fight for fair compensation after a crash. Let’s set up a time to talk—call us or fill out our online contact form.