Trucks Have Claimed A lot Of Lives On Our Roads. Here are 7 Ways You Can Avoid Being A victim

Accidents are said to be inevitable, but it can be reduced to an extent.

It is quite unfortunate that most accidents involving trucks and heavy duty vehicles end up being a blood bath especially if smaller vehicles are involved. We can therefore say that accidents involving heavy duty vehicles, trucks, and semi trucks with other smaller cars cause higher fatalities among passengers and drivers.

Take a moment to think of some accidents you’ve heard of or encountered that involves heavy duty vehicle, trucks or semi trucks. You’ll testify it wasn’t a good sight to behold. Lots of lives might be as stake.

Knowing how these trucks and heavy duty vehicles cause accidents can be a bonus to help us reduce serious road accidents, injury and death.

After seeing all that has been happening on our roads and how lives are lost daily, we at Autojosh decided to write about it and how these accidents could be reduced. This post isn’t just for the smaller car drivers but for all, including the truck drivers (I’m more concerned with how many of them that will get to read this).

Before we proceed, it is good you know that stopping a truck isn’t the same as stopping a small vehicle. They take much longer time to stop due to sheer weight. These trucks weigh up to 6000kg to 36,000kg when fully loaded.

HOW THESE TRUCKS CAUSE ACCIDENTS

1. Driver error:

This consists of lots of things including improper judgment by the driver, phone call distractions, driving too fast, driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Due to the length, height and weight of these trucks, concentration is highly needed.

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2. Overload and improper load distribution:

A lot of trucks we see on Nigerian roads are most times overloaded. They load these trucks more than what it is meant to carry. Doing so makes the truck to be dangerous to other road users.
Improper load distribution contribute to why you see loaded trucks flip when making it down a hill, when passing through rough roads or when they want to maneuver.

3. Bad roads:

This has been ranking high on the scale when it comes to the most causative agents of road accidents. When the road is bad, there is high tendency that it will be a very big problem for the trucks. The swerving, maneuvering, abrupt braking, switching of lanes of these trucks will always arise to something bad most of the time.

With all these known, how can we minimize getting involved in an accident with all these trucks on the road? They have been summarized here for you.

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HOW TO MINIMIZE GETTING INTO AN ACCIDENT WITH TRUCKS

1. Always keep a safe distance between your car and trucks.

Learn how to keep safe distance between you and a truck ahead of you. This is very important when slowly moving up hill or on a steep road, in traffic jams, at police checkpoints etc.
Remember, their weights when loaded are enormous and that makes their brakes not to be active just as it is in smaller cars.

2. Don’t drive aggressively around trucks.

Don’t rub shoulders with them or try unsafe maneuvers around them. Even when they try dragging the road with you, give them all the space they need so that you’ll leave to see the light of next day.

3. Don’t overtake on a bend or when road visibility is minimal:

Patience behind the wheel is priceless. Miscalculated overtaking on the road can make you end up in a head-on collision which can be very deadly.
Don’t overtake when you can’t see the road ahead of you clearly as a result of the bending nature of the road or the road is filled with smoke or it’s raining. These truck guys won’t steer clear for you when you make such costly mistake. The only thing they can do for you is to flash their light to remind you the impeding danger of your recklessness.

4. Give way for trucks when the road is rough.

If you can’t speedily go before them, then relax and wait for them to pass. Don’t be beside them when they are wobbling inside deep potholes. Due to overloading, imbalance and weight transfer, they might lose grip and flip.
If you are unlucky to be beside them when they flip, you might not live to tell your stories.

5. Ensure you give enough space when pulling over by the roadside. Pull over as far as possible to avoid collision.

6. When these trucks have tire blowout, it sounds terrible; like an explosion. This can send debris flying into the road. Always maintain safe distance.

7. Ensure you horn before overtaking trucks. You should always do this to let the truck drivers know your intention. Most of them don’t even have side mirror, so overtaking without honking will just put you in their blind spot which is risky for you.

If you found this post informative and worth reading, please don’t hesitate to share as much as you can. This particular post can help a lot of road users in our country.

In case you have any contributions, don’t hesitate to use the comment section. We would love to hear from you.