The truck's tire blew out or its brakes failed. Who is responsible?

“Equipment failure” is where the investigation starts, not where it ends

When an 18-wheeler loses a tire or its brakes and causes a crash, the trucking company’s first explanation is usually that it was sudden and nobody’s fault. Sometimes that is true. More often, a tire that blew had been underinflated, overloaded, worn past the legal limit or damaged for weeks, and brakes that failed had been out of adjustment on inspection after inspection. Federal law puts the responsibility for catching those problems on the carrier and its driver.

What the rules require

A commercial driver must be satisfied that the brakes, tires and other safety parts are in good working order before driving, and at the end of each day must report in writing any defect found in them. Defects that affect safety must be repaired before the truck goes out again. Every truck must pass a periodic inspection at least once a year, and every carrier must systematically inspect, repair and maintain its vehicles and keep records of that work.

The rules are specific about tires and brakes. Tires may not be run with tread below minimum depths — deeper on the steering axle, where a blowout is most dangerous — or with exposed cord, bulges or cuts, and regrooved tires are not allowed on the front wheels of trucks and tractors. Brakes on every required wheel must be working and properly adjusted. A truck that crashed with a bald steering tire or brakes out of adjustment is a truck that should not have been on the road.

Who can be responsible

The motor carrier is responsible for maintaining the truck and for the driver who inspected it. A maintenance shop or tire service that worked on it may be responsible for work done badly. If the tire or brake component was defective when it was made, the manufacturer can be liable under Texas products liability law. And if the truck was overloaded, the company that loaded it may share responsibility, because an overweight load overheats tires and overworks brakes.

Blowouts cause crashes in more than one way. A truck can lose control when a steering tire fails. Pieces of tread — the “road gators” you see on Texas freeways — can strike the cars behind it. And a truck with weak brakes cannot stop when the traffic ahead does, which produces some of the worst rear-end crashes on the road.

The evidence is a physical object, and it disappears

In these cases the failed tire or brake part is the most important piece of evidence. An expert can often tell from the tire itself whether it failed from a defect, from underinflation, from overloading or from road damage. Brake adjustment can be measured after a crash. But the tire debris gets swept off the road, the tractor gets repaired, and the parts get thrown away. The maintenance and inspection records have their own clock: the carrier must keep them for one year, and for six months after the vehicle leaves its control.

A preservation letter that names the tire, the brake components, the inspection reports and the maintenance file, sent in the first days, is what keeps that evidence in existence.

Retreads, recalls and overloading

Retreaded tires are legal on many truck positions and are common in the industry; used properly, they are not the problem. The questions are whether a retread was used where the rules do not allow it, whether it was old, damaged or repaired badly, and whether the tire or brake part was under a manufacturer’s recall that the carrier never acted on. Weight is the other common thread. A truck loaded beyond its tire and axle ratings runs hotter tires and needs more distance to stop, and weigh-station records, bills of lading and scale tickets can show what the truck was actually carrying. Each of these points to a different company, which is why the investigation has to cover all of them.

Authority: 49 CFR 393.75 (tires) · 49 CFR 396.3 (inspection, repair and maintenance) · 49 CFR 396.11 (driver vehicle inspection reports)