Trucking Product Liability Claims Based on Collision Avoidance and Crash Mitigation Technology

Introduction: A New Way to Think About Truck Crashes

Hey everyone, attorney Bob Byrne here. Thanks so much for visiting my channel today. I want to talk about something that either everyone who handles truck accident cases or anyone who’s trying to understand truck accident cases needs to understand, and that is whether a trucking crash may actually be a product liability claim.

So I recently gave a speech to some of the top trucking lawyers in America and I talked about how a lot of trucking claims today may actually be product liability claims. So a product liability claim is when there’s actually a defective or dangerous product that causes an injury or makes an injury substantially worse.

So if you handle these claims or you’ve been involved in one of these claims, this will hopefully provide some insight and give you a couple of things to explore as you’re trying to get some answers. So stay tuned.

Every Truck Crash Could Be a Product Liability Case

We’re at a time where potentially every truck crash case that happens could potentially be a product liability claim. And that’s mainly because of all of the advances that have happened with technology involving crash avoidance technology.

So crash avoidance technology is wrapped up in some of the technological advances that we see with what are called telematics systems. And I want to talk about how either the lack of telematics systems can make trucks dangerous, or how telematics systems themselves may fail and create a dangerous product in and of themselves.

Understanding Telematics Systems

So when we’re talking about how every trucking case could potentially be a product liability case, I want to focus on the technological advances that have happened with telematics systems in particular.

Telematics systems are kind of these onboard devices. Think of them almost like a phone for a truck where you’ve got a camera and all of these different apps. And the apps are like various integrations where you have dash cams and you have fleet management and you have fleet maintenance that a trucking company can use where they get all of this data about the vehicle.

One of the most important types of integrations that exists is the last one on this list, which is collision avoidance and mitigation technology.

How Collision Avoidance Technology Works

Basically, the way that collision avoidance technology works: you have these telematics systems which have a sensory device, whether it’s a camera, radar, lidar, ultrasound—some sort of detection device—that then transmits information to a computer or a processing unit.

If you have more than one type of detection technology—say camera plus lidar, camera plus radar, or all of the above—that’s what’s called a fusion system. And so these systems use AI and machine learning and they work together to try to prevent both the frequency and severity of collisions.

And this is something—there’s probably a couple hundred telematics system companies that exist in the U.S.—and basically these products can be put into new trucks right while they’re still in the factory before they’re sent out to the end user, or they can be retrofitted pretty much to any truck that’s out there today.

Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS)

So collision avoidance and mitigation technology is part of what are called Advanced Driver Assistance Systems. And probably a lot of people have these in their passenger vehicles today with the lane departure warning, the forward collision warning, haptic buzzes and vibrations that are in your vehicle that warn you about dangers or risks or obstacles up ahead.

The one that’s most relevant for trucks is automatic emergency braking. This is going to be in all vehicles in a few years. Trucks are lagging behind, but they are present in a lot of vehicles, especially of course the most modern ones.

Two Views of This Technology

Now there’s two views about this technology when you’re talking about collision avoidance.

The Upside View: This is the greatest thing since sliced bread. It’s going to reduce crashes, eventually eliminate them, and it is a wonderful technological advance for both truckers who are at risk and those motorists that are around them.

The Downside View: Yeah, it does have some benefits, but this technology is somewhere on the spectrum between annoying and really, really dangerous.

And so regardless of which view is out there, there are product liability claims that exist under either one.

Product Liability Claims: The Upside Argument

Let’s talk about product liability claims that are based on the upside—saying it’s the greatest thing ever. Now these are claims that exist against truck manufacturers because they are continuing to put trucks out on the market that do not have collision avoidance technology.

So put a little differently, some of the trucks that are being sold and put on the roads today don’t have this technology in them. And therefore, those trucks are unreasonably dangerous. They have a defective design and the manufacturers are not providing proper warnings about how dangerous these products can be.

Does the Technology Actually Work?

So the first thing to understand about these claims is whether this technology works in the first place. And the data shows that it does. So forward collision warning and emergency brakes—automatic emergency brakes—have been shown to reduce both collision frequency and severity.

The NHTSA Study:

There’s a big study done by NHTSA, which is one of the major government entities, and they conducted this massive study where drivers drove over 3 million miles, over 110,000 hours of driving. There were more than 6,000 activations of these collision avoidance systems, but not one rear-end collision in all of that driving, which is pretty remarkable.

Real-World Examples:

And if you look around on the internet, you’ll see all these crazy videos. And here’s one—this is a screenshot from one from Volvo where you could see this massive truck bearing down on a Volvo station wagon that is stopped in the road. And the Volvo truck goes from cruising speed to a stop and avoids a collision with this Volvo without any driver input. So the automatic emergency brakes kick on, a collision is averted, and there’s no damage, no injuries. It is kind of a perfect scenario. It’s these flex videos that are out there from different manufacturers.

But it’s not just manufacturers. Here’s a screenshot from a video from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety where a truck is bearing down on an inflatable Prius here. And you can see the inflatable Prius is stopped. The truck goes from a cruising speed to a complete stop without any driver input, and no inflatable Priuses were damaged in the video. And so collision again was avoided—very impressive technology.

The Technology Is Proven, Affordable, and Available

Not only is this stuff effective, it’s been around now for almost 20 years. This was first introduced in 2007. And it’s dirt cheap—I mean relatively speaking—for a little over $300, this technology can be put into trucks. It can be basically put into all trucks that are being manufactured. And so it’s a very viable and effective and reasonable thing that truck companies should be putting in.

So the argument is: given how cheap and effective and how it’s really everywhere, this technology is so readily available—if a truck doesn’t have it, then that truck is dangerous. And the manufacturer that makes it is putting a product out there that has a design defect and they’re not properly warning the users of the truck without this safety technology.

Why Isn’t It Standard Equipment?

So you have to ask yourself, if it’s so cheap and so effective and so available, why isn’t it being put in every truck that goes out today?

The reason why is money. The trucking companies are making it an optional upgrade, and even though they can put it in for a few hundred dollars, they’re charging thousands of dollars for this upgrade.

Legal Cases: Claims for Lacking the Technology

There have been claims brought against trucking manufacturers for failing to include this technology in their new builds.

Connecticut Case (August 2024):

And here’s a case from Connecticut from August of ’24 where a 2016 Freightliner crashed into a box truck that was overturned in the roadway ahead, blocking the lane of travel. And the Freightliner was not equipped with crash avoidance technology, did not see this overturned box truck, and collided—caused a terrible, terrible crash.

The plaintiffs sued Freightliner and said, “Hey listen, this truck—had it been equipped with crash avoidance technology—this crash never would have happened. And therefore your truck has a defective design and you failed to warn about this danger.”

The court in Connecticut said, “You know what? That is a claim that the jury gets to decide,” and they allowed the case to go forward to a jury.

Kansas Case (Minority View):

But not all courts are receptive with this view. So here’s a case from Kansas where a court said, “Come on, people have been driving these trucks for decades and they haven’t had this technology in them. And you can’t say that suddenly these trucks are dangerous because they don’t have it. And everyone knows about the risks of inattentive driving, so you can’t say that the trucking company was negligent for failing to warn people about the dangers of inattentive driving.”

So this is a minority view. Most courts have not ruled the same way as this court in Kansas.

So if you’re an attorney who’s handling these cases or if you’ve been involved in one of these cases and the truck that hit you was not equipped with this technology, look into the possibility of one of these claims. These are viable claims if the trucking manufacturer did not put the proper technology into the vehicle.

Product Liability Claims: The Downside Argument

So those are claims based on the upside of the technology. Let’s talk about claims based on the downside of telematics crash avoidance technology.

And so this happens when you have a truck that is equipped with the technology, but the technology fails. It doesn’t detect the vehicle ahead or some other obstacle ahead. It hits it and there’s a terrible collision that occurs. And these can occur against the telematics companies in addition to the trucking manufacturers.

How the Technology Can Fail: Detection and Definition

So to really understand these claims, you have to understand how this technology works in the first place. The way to understand it: these systems are based on detecting and defining.

These systems work by detecting an obstacle ahead, whether that’s the camera, the lidar, the radar, the ultrasound, or the fusion technology. They see an obstacle ahead and then they transmit that information into a computer, and it runs through algorithms to figure out what is this object ahead. It has to define what the object is.

And so what happens is sometimes there’s either not detection that is made, or there’s not definition of that particular object by the computer system. The algorithm fails—either the hardware fails or the software fails. And in either situation, if you don’t have detection or if you don’t have definition, the default is for the truck to go full speed ahead.

And so you could have a scenario where it sees an obstacle but it can’t figure out what it is, or it doesn’t see an obstacle at all. In either situation, there’s going to be a collision that occurs.

Why Detection or Definition Fails

So there can be lots of reasons why it doesn’t detect or doesn’t define.

Suboptimal Conditions: You could have suboptimal conditions like maybe there’s terrible weather, you’re not able to see, you could be at night, something like that where the system is not going to be able to work as intended.

Obstacle Position: You could have a situation where the obstacle that is ahead that is blocking the road of travel is not in a position where the system is designed to define what it is. So for example, in that Connecticut case that I mentioned, there was an overturned box truck and the roof was facing the oncoming vehicle.

The defense in that case was to say, “Hey listen, these systems are only designed to detect vehicles that are forward-facing directly ahead. And if it’s not forward-facing—if it’s turned to the side or if it’s turned on its top—it can’t define what that is. And so it’s not going to work in those scenarios. It’s only something if it’s really a plain vanilla detection and definition scenario. And anything other than that, these systems won’t work.”

Algorithmic Problems: And you could have other types of algorithmic problems where there’s not going to be a detection or a definition based on the inputs and the outputs that are received and that are processed by the system.

Again, if you’re handling these cases or if you’ve been involved in these cases, check to see if the truck was equipped with a collision avoidance system. Because it could be the case that it was equipped, that it failed to operate, and that therefore there was a malfunction of the system. And had it worked as intended, this crash never would have happened. That could be a viable claim against both the telematics company and potentially the truck manufacturer.

False Activations: Another Dangerous Scenario

But there’s other claims based on the downsides, such as if there’s false or excessive automatic emergency brake activations.

And so you can imagine a situation where a truck has a false activation, the brakes slam on on a busy road, vehicles crash into it, and you could have a terrible scenario for both the truck driver and for surrounding vehicles.

Evidence from the NHTSA Study:

What’s interesting is in that NHTSA study that I mentioned, there are numerous mentions of potential false or excessive automatic emergency brake activations. I mean, here are just some of them, but they come up repeatedly in this report. And if you look down at this last one—it might be cut off on this particular copy—but safety managers of trucking companies were saying this could be a major problem, these false activations, especially on icy, snowy, bad roads where if a truck suddenly slams on its brakes in icy conditions and there’s no warning or reason for it whatsoever, that could be a catastrophic situation for both the truck driver and surrounding motorists.

What Truck Drivers Say About False Activations

What’s fascinating is to read some of the comments on Reddit and other places on the internet where truckers say, “Hey, these systems can be very, very dangerous.” I saw one driver describe these automatic emergency brakes as “lightning brakes,” and they’ll say they will just blast on without warning, scare the heck out of you, and oftentimes there’s no reason for them to come on. And it could be some false obstacle that was detected that causes this. And this is the sort of thing that can cause all sorts of dangerous problems.

Common Causes of False Activations:

According to truckers, there’s a lot of reasons why there are false activations of automatic emergency brakes. They talk about:

• Overpasses triggering the systems
• Vehicles in other lanes
• Vehicles getting off the exit
• Objects on curves like signs, trees, other things

And all of these things could cause the system to activate when a human that is driving correctly would never activate the system. And if you have a situation where there is a braking scenario that’s false, it’s abrupt, and it’s a strong one, that could be disastrous.

The Reality Behind Those “Flex Videos”

So when you’re thinking about these false activation scenarios and how those can arise and you’re thinking about these various stimuli that can cause that, let’s take a look at the video—the flex video from Volvo—to see how they dealt with these particular possibilities.

Here is a shot from the cab of that video. And you can see this is not a real-world condition at all. They set up perfect testing conditions so that there’s no possibility of a false activation, in that there’s only one stimulus and that these brakes are going to respond to that one stimulus.

If you put these videos into perspective and you kind of compare it to real-world situations:

• They’re at lower speed
• Straight road, no curve, no possibility of seeing something on the curve
• No overpass
• No other vehicles
• This is daytime
• Clean road with good markings
• The vehicle is facing forward perfectly

And so it really starts to make you say, “Well, maybe that flex video isn’t quite as impressive as we first thought.”

The “Sitting Duck” Scenario

And you could have a situation where if a truck stops abruptly and there’s no reason for it to do so, you could have a situation where in the trucking world it’s a “sitting duck.” A car crashes into it—could be a terrible, terrible scenario and cause terrible crashes.

What to Look For in These Cases

So what to look for if you handle these cases or if you are someone who’s been involved in one:

• Look to see if there was a false activation of a collision avoidance system with the automatic emergency brakes
• See if that could have contributed to the crash
• See if there was an activation on icy roads, on bad weather, hazardous weather conditions, which could be terrible
• You could have a situation where there was an abrupt cargo shift where the truck slammed on its brakes incorrectly and then the cargo shifts into the cab and hurts or even worse causes the death of the driver or other occupants

And so that’s something that you want to be on the lookout for, be aware of, and be thinking of.

Why This Matters: Finding Adequate Coverage

One of the trickiest things about handling truck accident cases is finding enough insurance coverage or enough assets to properly compensate your clients for all of the horrific injuries or even death that occur as a result of a truck crash. Because obviously those crashes can be many times worse than just vehicle crashes.

And so it’s imperative that if you’re handling these cases or if you’re looking for an attorney to handle them, make sure you look at a potential product liability angle—either dealing with a truck that is dangerous because it’s not equipped with telematics systems, or a telematics system that is equipped in the truck but it fails. And you may have a claim against the manufacturer of the truck or the manufacturer of the telematics system.

Conclusion

So this is some pretty technical stuff. It’s some dense stuff. If you have questions about it, feel free to reach out to me. Shoot me a comment below, shoot me an email—happy to talk about this, walk you through it.

But I hope that no matter what your position is, if this is something that’s helpful for you—even if you’re someone who’s in a truck manufacturing company or telematics company—hopefully this can shed some light for you guys about things that you might be able to do to improve these products, make them even safer so that we can cut down on even more crashes.

But thanks so much for watching. If you haven’t yet, please consider subscribing, like this video, and stay tuned for the next one. Thanks so much.