Collisions between a passenger vehicle and a semi-truck are often catastrophic. One of the most common semi-truck collisions are merging accidents. Semi-truck merging accidents occur frequently in the Chicago and surrounding areas as many large trucks travel through the area entering and exiting expressways to make their deliveries.
A semi-truck merging accident occurs when a vehicle is attempting to merge and does not notice a vehicle in a parallel lane or fails to leave enough room between itself and another vehicle when merging. When a semi-truck is the vehicle responsible for a merging collision the results are often deadly due to its large size. Thirty percent of fatal truck accidents nation-wide occur on interstates and freeways where merging is a common practice.
The majority of fatalities in large truck crashes are the occupants of passenger vehicles. As semi-trucks can weigh up to 20-30 times more than a passenger vehicle, the impact of a collision to the smaller vehicle will be substantial. In addition, because large trucks are much taller than passenger vehicles there is great risk a vehicle could become stuck under the truck.