Overloaded/Overweight Truck Accidents in Prince George’s County
A tractor-trailer can outweigh a commuter car by over several thousand pounds. Trucks are incomparably large and heavy machines, and the restrictions placed on maximum vehicle weight by both state and federal laws are there to keep everyone safe on the roads.
Overloaded truck accidents in Prince George’s County and throughout Maryland are dangerous incidents, as trucks that carry too much weight can cause much more damage. When you sustain serious injuries because a trucker was carrying too much cargo to safely keep under control, a skilled truck accident attorney could help you demand compensation for your losses from everyone at fault.
How Much Can Semi-Trucks Legally Weigh?
Under the federal trucking law, which applies to trucks traveling across state borders, the maximum gross vehicle weight rating a single truck can have is 80,000 pounds. Additionally, restrictions are placed on how much weight a truck can have distributed onto a single-wheel axle. These limits restrict trucks to 20,000 pounds per single axle and 34,000 pounds per tandem axle.
Maryland state law imposes identical restrictions on most trucks traveling within state borders and additionally specifies that no truck can carry more than 42,500 pounds on a tridem axle. However, suppose a trucking company receives a special permit. In that case, they can send a truck on a route within state borders with a Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) of up to 150,000 pounds and weight limits of 27,000 pounds, 52,000 pounds, and 63,000 pounds, respectively, on single axles, tandem axle groups, and tridem axle groups.
Proving a Truck in PGC Was Overweight
Any time a truck driver, trucking company, or anyone else involved in a trucking operation puts a truck on the road that is heavier than it is legally allowed to be, they have breached their “duty of care” for everyone else on the road. As a result, they could be legally liable for any damages caused by their “negligence,” if the wreck stemmed directly from the truck being overloaded.
Unfortunately, most truck companies that knowingly load up trucks past legal weight limits actively try to cover their tracks by falsifying driving logs and destroying records that would otherwise serve as vital evidence against them during a civil claim. Support from an experienced legal professional is often vital to tracking down all of the necessary information to have a successful overweight truck wreck case in Prince George’s County.
Let a Prince George’s County Attorney Help You with an Overloaded Truck Accident Lawsuit
The more weight a truck carries, the more damage it can do to any vehicle it encounters. With that in mind, any trucking company that disregards federal and state truck weight limits should be held financially accountable for any accident that their misconduct results in.
Seasoned legal counsel could give you the guidance you may need to effectively recover from an overloaded truck accident in Prince George’s County. Learn more by calling Price Benowitz today at (202) 444-44444.
