blog home Truck Accident What Purpose Do “Black Boxes” Serve After Truck Accidents?

What Purpose Do “Black Boxes” Serve After Truck Accidents?

By Glendale Personal Injury Attorney on September 10, 2022

People most often associate the term “black box” with airplanes, as they are recognized to be a piece of crucial technology that helps to determine how an accident on a plane has happened. Most people don’t realize that black boxes aren’t just on planes, but are now common on trucks.

Most commonly trucks that have black boxes will be commercial semi-trucks or large rigs. Black boxes in trucks have not only improved the trucks’ safety but can help to determine what caused a truck accident so that drivers and/or truck companies can be held accountable.

In addition to black boxes, every commercial truck is required to have an ELD (electronic logging device), which predominantly tracks the number of hours that a truck driver operates the vehicle. This data may be very useful in an accident as there is a limit placed on the amount of consecutive hours a truck driver can drive, and it may help to show that a driver was driving while tired.

What Is the Purpose of the Black Box?

Black boxes record all types of information that is useful in determining what factors contributed to or caused a motor accident. The information that is the most useful for personal injury lawyers to obtain from the black box are:

  • Where the accident occurred.
  • The speed of the truck.
    • This can include the speed at the time of the accident.
    • The average speed of the truck throughout its journey.
    • If the truck driver was operating the vehicle using cruise control.
  • Any mechanical faults with the truck.
  • When or if the airbags deployed.
  • When or if the brakes were applied.
  • The position of the tires and steering wheel prior to the accident and at the time of the accident.
  • Which safety precautions the truck driver took.

The information stored in the black box can help to determine the cause of the accident and whether the driver was at fault, a mechanical issue occurred, or if some other factor contributed to your personal injury.

How Is the Data Retrieved?

Retrieving data from a black box is a lengthy and sometimes complicated process. The black boxes in trucks will most often belong to the company that employs the driver. This means that they may be reluctant to share this information with other people, as the company will likely be held liable for accidents caused by their drivers.

A Lawyer Can Help

A truck accident lawyer in Glendale can help you to secure the evidence and have their expert retrieve it for an assessment. Your attorney would first submit a certified letter of preservation to place all of the parties who have control over the evidence on notice that any such crucial evidence must be preserved. Failure to preserve the identified evidence will result in extremely unfavorable consequences for the parties who had control over it. Once the letter is received by all of the parties who have control over the evidence, they would have to secure the data.

The lawyer can then receive the data either during discovery, after filing a lawsuit, and will be able to have it analyzed by one of its experts to determine the cause of the accident. A lawyer with experience and expertise will know which data provided by their expert would prove that the driver of the truck was at fault in the accident, so that only the relevant data will be provided as evidence.

There is an array of injuries that people can suffer from due to an accident involving a truck.  Many of these injuries can be severe and long-lasting, requiring multiple visits to the hospital, physical therapy, medication, and can result in a loss of employment, loss of life enjoyment and may even require full-time care.

Any combination of these effects is expensive and stressful. Hiring a Glendale truck accident attorney can ensure that you or your loved one don’t have to worry about the costs of care. Aratta Law Firm has dealt with hundreds of cases and can help you through the entire process. If you or a loved one has suffered due to an accident caused by a truck, then call Aratta Law Firm at (818) 550-1111 to get started today.

Posted in: Truck Accident