A cement truck overturned recently, snarling traffic on I-270 near Commerce City. The crash caused the cement truck to spill the load of cement onto the roadway, causing a partial road closure that Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) assessed for possible HAZMAT response.

While thankfully, no one suffered serious injuries in this rollover, the challenges of operating these massive construction vehicles frequently lead to cement truck crashes. The unique cargo causes instability, heavy time pressure, and maneuverability issues that all make rollover crashes more common and dangerous.

If a cement truck injured you or a loved one in a crash, you deserve to know why it happened and what someone could have done to prevent it. You need the best truck crash attorney near you to help determine the underlying cause of a crash and get you the compensation you deserve for your medical expenses.

Have you been injured in a cement truck accident?

Call The Law Offices of Peter M. Anderson, Colorado Truck Accident Lawyer for a free consultation

What Causes Cement Truck Crashes?

There can be multiple reasons for a cement truck to crash and roll over. These include tire blowouts, instability in the load of cement it was carrying, driver error, or other mechanical causes.

Cement trucks are usually smaller than a semi tractor and trailer combination. But these construction vehicles will often weigh nearly as much. Cement truck truck crashes can carry the same, if not greater, risks of catastrophic injuries, wrongful death, or massive property damage as crashes involving big rigs. Cement truck truck crashes also have the potential to cause serious environmental or roadway damage given the nature of the cargo they haul.

Cement Load Instability

Loaded Cement Trucks must keep their drums spinning to keep the mixture of water and cement from setting. If the drum stops, the entire load can harden, which is a costly and difficult mistake to correct.

The load of cement in a standard cement truck is typically between 8 and 10 cubic yards. A cubic yard of cement averages about 4,056 pounds, so a fully loaded mixer carries upwards of 40,000 pounds of cement. The cement truck itself can weigh approximately 26,000 pounds, for a total of 66,000 pounds.

A rotating cement drum holding upwards of 40,000 pounds can shift the entire cement truck’s center of gravity. If the load becomes uneven, this can cause the vehicle to become unstable, even at low speeds. If the situation requires a turn or sudden maneuver, that instability can easily cause a rollover truck crash. The massive weight of these vehicles makes cleanup all the more difficult as well:

Source: Wheat Ridge Police

The specific type of concrete affects the mixer’s stability. A rotating concrete drum creates “slump,” which shifts the cement truck’s center of gravity. High slump concrete flows easily and shifts quickly when the drum rotation pulls it up the sides, creating instability. Low slump concrete stays thicker but can pile high on one side of the drum, making that side of the cement truck much heavier. These conditions make turns or sudden movements increasingly dangerous.

Time Pressure to Make Deliveries

Cement truck drivers are under unique pressure to make timely deliveries. While all truck drivers feel pressure to make a delivery on time, delays for cement truck drivers can be disasters and ruin not only the load of cement, but also their trucks. Drivers have to discharge concrete within 90 minutes of the time water was added to the mixture or after no more than 300 rotations of the drum.

The pressure to get their loads of fresh cement to jobsites quickly can lead to drivers speeding or making unsafe maneuvers that can lead to a crash. Any quick or sudden maneuver with a loaded cement truck could potentially cause a rollover crash. High speed or aggressive driving can force drivers to brake suddenly or swerve, causing catastrophic crashes.

Road Conditions

Cement trucks’ size, weight, and limited mobility make otherwise harmless road conditions dangerous and can cause rollover crashes. Soft shoulders pose particular risks on roadways, whether caused by water, melting snow or ice, or loose sand or gravel.

Photographs from the scene of the Commerce City rollover seem to indicate that the cement truck went onto the sandy shoulder before rolling over.

Construction companies often task cement trucks with delivering cargo to worksites, requiring drivers to navigate unpaved or unstable surfaces around busy jobsites. The weight of these vehicles can cause excavations or ramps to collapse and cave in. The dangers to workers on worksites are even greater than those to passenger vehicles.

Tire Blowouts

An experienced truck driver can maintain control of a semi truck even when faced with an unexpected tire blowout. A tire blowout for a cement truck driver is a much more difficult emergency to deal with.

Tire blowout truck crashes are relatively common. They typically result from maintenance issues and accounted for more than 2000 out-of-service violations in 2020 alone. Underinflation causes the vast majority of tire failures — 90%.

Tire blowouts can cause the truck driver to lose control, swerve into traffic, or even cause rollover crashes, as may have happened here. Tire blowouts put other drivers at risk and snarl traffic for hours requiring extensive cleanup and removal efforts:

What Can be Done to Prevent Cement Truck Crashes?

Cement truck wrecks require different handling than car crashes or even commercial truck crashes. Even experienced trucking attorneys need to understand the differences before handling a cement truck accident or injury case.

Commercial truck driving presents challenges for any driver. With all the inherent challenges associated with operating cement trucks, proper training and supervision of cement truck drivers is more important than ever. Inexperienced cement truck drivers unfamiliar with the specific and unique considerations for operating a cement truck may make mistakes that lead to horrific crashes.

Experienced truck accident lawyers know the bare minimum required of any cement truck driver is possession of a Class B commercial driver’s license (CDL). But many will be shocked to discover the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSRs) do not have any specific qualification requirements pertaining to cement trucks.

The Colorado Commercial Drivers License Manual contains no specific rules or education regarding operation for cement mixers. This has left specialized education for these vehicles up to trade associations or employers.

Experienced truck accident attorneys will know to look to trade associations, large construction companies, and even truck manufacturers for rules and best practices for cement truck drivers. These sources are imperative to understanding whether or not the cement truck driver or their employer failed to take the necessary steps to ensure proper education and safety.

The FMCSRs do provide for certain hours of service exemptions for cement truck drivers. Specifically, they are exempt from the 30-minute break rule, and are allowed to count on-duty time waiting at job sites. Cement truck drivers are also permitted to utilize the “short haul” exception applicable to operating within 100-mile radius of their worksite, but with the longer 14-hour on duty limit applicable to other drivers. Knowing how these exceptions apply and how they can be abused is important for any cement truck crash case.

Knowing when and who to bring in as experts to help your cement truck claim becomes critical. And often, the employees and personnel of the cement company will become the best experts to prove the faults of the employer at the time of the crash. You need an experienced truck crash lawyer with an understanding of not only the trucking industry, but the cement and construction industry to find all the responsible parties.

***

If you are involved in a cement truck crash, you need a legal team with the experience and education to win not only tough commercial truck accident cases, but construction and cement truck cases. You cannot simply find a car accident attorney near you and expect to get the compensation you deserve for personal injury claims from a complex truck crash. Attorneys at the Law Offices of Peter M. Anderson have the experience and education necessary to handle complex truck accident claims. Peter M. Anderson is board-certified in truck accident law by the Academy of Truck Accident Attorneys, one of only two such qualified in the state of Colorado. He can navigate the complex federal regulations applicable to your injury claims. He has a history of successfully holding negligent truck drivers and trucking companies responsible in serious truck crash cases.  Call the Law Offices of Peter M. Anderson, Colorado Truck Accident Lawyer, at 303-444-1505 today.