Commercial truck drivers account for approximately 10 percent of the fatal accidents on public highways in California, and sleep deprivation is the source of roughly 40 percent of all related truck accidents in the US.

Researchers have proven that exhausted truck drivers are responsible for:

• Almost 65 percent of collisions with roadway fixtures, signs and cement medians
• Less than 20 percent of impacts with other vehicles
• More than 5 percent are individual catastrophes or involve unoccupied vehicles.

Commercial truck drivers pose a threat to themselves and innocent people every day by adhering to a tight delivery schedule. Since truck drivers are pressed to deliver products from destination A to destinations B, C, and D in a matter of days and thousands of miles, the drivers tend to deprive themselves of required sleep to deliver the products safely. With the drivers keeping such a rigid schedule, sleep is limited to break periods that do not allow for a full eight hours of sleep. This causes exhaustion and undue accidents with other vehicles, roadway structures, and individual catastrophes. Though many will feel bad for the drivers who are pressured to work under such conditions, the truth is that drivers who knowingly operate their trucks while deprived of sleep are negligent for accidents that they cause, and if their employers pressure them to keep driving regardless of the rest they've had, they can also be held liable.

A sleep deprived truck driver will illustrate the signs of exhaustion but ignore them due to the tight agenda. The signs of an exhausted driver are: wandering between lanes, unnecessary speeds, and miscalculating the space between the truck and other vehicles. An exhausted driver will miss the approaching dangers and overplay the truck and lose control. Typically, this will cause the truck to jackknife or even rollover accident into oncoming traffic causing unjust accidents. At times, the driver will fall asleep at the wheel strike a guardrail, drift off the road and hit a tree, or even collide with utility poles.

Some accident attorneys specialize in injuries from commercial truck accidents. These attorneys investigate the specifics and actions leading up to the accident. Once the investigation is thoroughly conducted, the injured individual will be informed if a suitable claim can be brought forth.