You can understand the pressure put on working professionals to perform well at their jobs in Houston. Thus, if and when you are involved in a truck accident caused by the actions of a truck driver, a good question to ask may be why were they driving the way that they were? Could a decision to have driven above the speed limit (or at a speed that most would consider safe to drive a large semi-truck) have been prompted by pressure to perform applied by their employers?
Many might argue that the decision to drive recklessly is a personal one, and therefore truck companies should not be held liable if their drivers choose to speed. Citing pressure from an employer to meet a certain expectation may appear to be justification for one’s one poor decision. Yet that the same time, it is not unreasonable to believe that truck companies and motor carriers want to please their customers and guaranteeing on-time deliveries can go a long way towards accomplishing that goal.
So how are you to know whether the actions of the truck driver that hit you were influenced by their employer? Comparing the actual mileage of a route to a promised delivery time could yield an answer. If the delivery time is unrealistic given the amount of road a driver must cover to fulfill it, then one might assume that the employer is expecting too much (or even encouraging potential dangerous driving practices).
Section 392.6 of the Code of Federal Regulations states that employers cannot assign route completion times that would require a driver to speed through any of the areas the route crosses. Doing so may be seen as a disregard for safety in order to meet business goals.
