Truck Accidents and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulation Violations

Every commercial 18-wheeler drive and trucking company operating in Texas is required to follow the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSRs), rules designed to protect everyone on the road from preventable and catastrophic truck crashes.  However, FMCSA violations are alarmingly common with nearly 300,000 violations recorded in Federal and State investigations on motor carriers in the last 5 years. And in Texas, home to the nation’s most dangerous truck accidents, these violations are taking a devastating toll.

According to the latest FMCSA crash statistics, roughly 35% of the 644 fatal large truck crashes in Texas in 2024 involved drivers operating with a missing, suspended, revoked, or otherwise invalid Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) — among the most serious FMCSA violations. And last year, more than half of the truck drivers involved in fatal truck crashes in Texas were cited for safety violations, including speeding, cell phone use, fatigue-related violations, and falsifying logbooks. At least 19 drivers were also cited for operating a commercial vehicle with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.08 or higher.

Behind each of these crashes is a person or family whose lives were changed forever. If you were injured or lost a loved one in a truck accident, you deserve answers and a legal team with the resources, proven track record, and experience to uncover what really happened, who let it happen, and why. Contact us today at 888-603-3636 to schedule a free consultation with a truck accident attorney in Texas.

Table of Contents

• How Zehl & Associates Helps After a Truck Accident Involving FMCSA Violations
• Why Do Trucking Companies Violate FMCSA Regulations?
• What Is an FMCSA Violation?
• Why FMCSA Violations Matter in a Texas Truck Accident Lawsuit
• Important Evidence in a Texas FMCSA Violation Truck Accident Case
• Undefeated Texas FMCSA Violation Accident Attorneys: 1-888-603-3636 for a Free Consultation

How Zehl & Associates Helps After a Truck Accident Involving FMCSA Violations

With Billions won for accident victims, including the #1 Largest Truck Accident Verdict in Texas and the #1 Largest Truck Accident Settlement in Texas, Zehl & Associates has built a national reputation for uncovering FMCSA violations, exposing unsafe trucking practices, and holding even the world’s largest trucking companies fully accountable for the harm they cause.

Having successfully represented thousands of truck accident victims throughout Texas, we know that serious truck crashes rarely result from a single mistake. More often, they occur because a trucking company ignored multiple federal safety regulations long before the collision ever happened.

From day one, we build every case to uncover every FMCSA violation that contributed to the crash and recover the maximum compensation possible by:

• Assembling a team of nationally recognized trial lawyers, accident reconstructionists, trucking industry experts, and forensic specialists to determine exactly how the crash occurred and expose every safety failure that contributed to it.
• Identifying every FMCSA violation committed by both the truck driver and the trucking company, including Hours of Service violations, driver qualification failures, inadequate maintenance, distracted driving, and other federal safety violations that establish negligence.
• Holding every responsible party fully accountable, including the truck driver, motor carrier, maintenance contractors, cargo loaders, and other companies whose negligence contributed to the collision.
• Pursuing punitive damages whenever the evidence shows reckless or grossly negligent conduct, including trucking companies that knowingly violated federal safety regulations or placed unsafe drivers and vehicles on Texas roads.
• Preparing every case for trial from day one and refusing to settle for anything less than the full compensation our clients deserve for their medical expenses, lost income, pain and suffering, and every other loss resulting from the crash.

Trucking companies know when we’re involved that they have one of two options: Pay our clients what they truly deserve, or face us at trial, where we remain undefeated — and where we will secure the justice and full financial resources our clients need to move forward.

Our undefeated Truck & 18-Wheeler Accident Attorneys will also do everything in our power to make sure the trucking company and driver are never able to violate federal regulations or operate unsafely again. 

Why Do Trucking Companies Violate FMCSA Regulations?

Trucking companies violate FMCSA regulations because cutting corners saves time, reduces operating costs, and increases profits. Tragically, FMCSA violations result in hundreds of Texas truck accidents and thousands of serious safety violations each year, including crashes caused by speeding, cell phone use, fatigue, poor vehicle maintenance, and drug and alcohol violations. 

Federal trucking regulations exist because commercial trucks can weigh 80,000 pounds or more when fully loaded, making even a single safety failure catastrophic. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), the federal agency that regulates the commercial trucking industry in the U.S., sets these rules to prevent dangerous and deadly truck crashes. 

When the FMCSA identifies the most serious safety violations, it can issue penalties, place carriers out of service, and remove unsafe operators from the road. However, many dangerous violations remain hidden until they are uncovered through inspections, investigations, or a devastating crash. By the time these failures are discovered, the damage has already been done — and crash victims and their families are often left facing life-changing injuries, financial hardship, and unimaginable loss.

What Is an FMCSA Violation?

An FMCSA violation occurs whenever a truck driver or trucking company fails to follow the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, mandatory federal safety standards created to prevent catastrophic truck accidents.

These regulations establish the minimum safety requirements for commercial trucking, governing everything from who is qualified to operate an 18-wheeler and how long they can legally drive, to how trucks must be inspected, maintained, and operated before every trip.

Unfortunately, trucking companies often put profits ahead of safety, leading to dangerous practices that violate FMCSRs. In Texas alone, trucking companies have accumulated nearly 60,000 FMCSA violations since 2022, with violations of local laws and those involving false records of duty status and safety compliance failures among the most common.

Common trucking industry practices that violate FMCSRs include:

• Ignoring known safety violations to keep trucks on the road
• Pressuring drivers to exceed Hours-of-service limits or continue driving while fatigued
• Hiring inexperienced, unqualified, or improperly vetted drivers
• Failing to complete and properly document required pre-employment checks and annual reporting requirements
• Allowing medically unqualified drivers to remain behind the wheel
• Delaying critical maintenance, inspections, or repairs to avoid costly downtime
• Failing to properly train, supervise, or monitor drivers
• Creating unrealistic delivery schedules that encourage unsafe driving decisions
• Falsifying driver logs, inspection records, or other required safety documentation

Many of these dangerous practices never result in an immediate FMCSA citation or out-of-service violation. A trucking company may continue operating while violating federal safety standards until a crash exposes the underlying failures

Why FMCSA Violations Matter in a Texas Truck Accident Lawsuit

After a serious truck accident, identifying every federal safety violation is critical. These violations often provide some of the strongest evidence that the trucking company or truck driver failed to operate safely and should be held fully accountable.

The truth is, truck accident cases are won or lost based on the attorney’s understanding of the Federal Safety Regulations, the technology that trucking companies and their drivers use to monitor the movement, speed, fuel consumption and driving activity of the trucks, and the lawyer’s willingness and ability to take your case to trial — and win.

Unfortunately, proving FMCSA violations isn’t easy. Trucking companies and their insurers will do everything in their power after a crash to protect themselves, conceal Hours of Service violations and key evidence, change their version of events, or blame victims for their own injuries.

That’s why immediate action is critical.

At Zehl & Associates, we know where to look for evidence of FMCSA violations, how to preserve that evidence before it’s lost, and how to use it to prove negligence against even the largest trucking companies in the country. Most importantly, we know how to turn those violations into compelling evidence that maximizes our clients’ recovery at the negotiating table or before a jury.

Important Evidence in a Texas FMCSA Violation Truck Accident Case

When FMCSA violations contribute to a serious crash, they can establish exactly how the collision occurred, why it was preventable, and who should be held fully accountable. But uncovering these violations requires an immediate investigation and preservation of important evidence before it can be altered, overwritten, or “misplaced.”

From day one, we move quickly to preserve critical evidence, including the truck’s black box data, ECM downloads, driver logbook, inspection records, maintenance files, and other records that can reveal whether a trucking company or driver violated federal safety regulations and state transportation laws.

This evidence exposes critical details about the crash, including the truck’s speed before impact, braking patterns, the driver’s actual hours behind the wheel compared to their recorded logs, and whether safety failures contributed to the collision.

In our experience, serious truck crashes rarely involve just one mistake. We often uncover a chain of safety failures, from negligent hiring and inadequate training to ignored maintenance problems and Hours-of-Service violations, that together reveal how the crash could and should have been prevented.

If the trucking company refuses to accept responsibility — and in our experience, that is almost always the case — we’re prepared to make them answer for every safety violation in court, where we’ve never lost a case against the most powerful trucking companies in the world.

Furthermore, we can hold the trucking company and its insurers accountable for the FULL amount of recoverable damages because we have the data to back up exactly how much harm they caused you and how they could have prevented the accident in the first place.  

Record-Setting Results: Truck Accidents Involving FMCSA Violations

Our Truck Accident Attorneys have secured some of the largest truck accident recoveries in Texas by uncovering the safety failures behind catastrophic crashes:

• $37.5 Million Distracted Driving Truck Accident Verdict: Secured for a Dallas family who lost their loved one after an 18-wheeler crash caused by a truck driver who violated federal safety rules by using a cell phone behind the wheel.
• $35 Million Fatigue-Related Truck Accident Settlement: Won for a Fort Worth family who lost their loved one in a crash involving a truck driver whose untreated sleep apnea created a dangerous fatigue risk that the trucking company failed to address.
• $32 Million Fatigued Oilfield Truck Accident Settlement: Recovered for a family seriously injured after a truck driver violated Hours-of-Service regulations and fell asleep behind the wheel.
• $20 Million Distracted Driving Truck Accident Settlement:Secured for a Houston family who lost their loved one in a fatal crash caused by an 18-wheeler driver who was distracted by a cell phone.

In addition to our record-setting results, our team has helped drive federal regulatory changes regarding Obstructive Sleep Apnea testing, critical to reducing fatigue-related accidents, and we continue to use our expertise and wins in the courtroom to push for even more trucking safety measures.  

Undefeated Texas FMCSA Violation Accident Attorneys: 1-888-603-3636 for a Free Consultation

Our Undefeated Texas 18 Wheeler Accident Lawyers have won Billions, including the largest truck accident verdicts and settlements in Texas and U.S. history, for thousands of people injured or tragically killed by fatigued, impaired, and reckless commercial drivers.  As our results demonstrate, we don’t just win — we set records.

If you or someone you love were injured in a truck or 18-wheeler accident, contact our Experienced Truck Accident Lawyers at 1-888-603-3636 or send us a confidential email via our Contact Us form. 

Your consultation is free, and you won’t pay anything unless we win your case.