Truck Accident FAQs: Federal Rules, Insurance, and Evidence

A crash with a tractor-trailer or other large commercial truck follows the same Massachusetts injury rules as a car crash: PIP, the tort threshold, and the three-year deadline. Trucking adds federal safety rules, higher insurance requirements, and records the carrier must keep. These answers cover what is different.

Interstate trucking companies and their drivers must follow the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations in Title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations. The parts that come up most in injury cases are:

• Part 382, drug and alcohol testing.
• Part 391, driver qualification.
• Part 392, driving rules, including the ban on driving while too fatigued or ill to drive safely (49 C.F.R. § 392.3).
• Part 393, equipment, including brakes and cargo securement.
• Part 395, hours of service and electronic logs.
• Part 396, inspection, repair, and maintenance.

Massachusetts incorporates these federal rules for trucks operating within the state too, with some state-specific exceptions (540 CMR 14.00). The rules set safety duties. Whether a company is liable for your injuries is still decided under Massachusetts negligence law, where a safety violation is evidence of negligence, not automatic proof.

A driver hauling property may drive no more than 11 hours after 10 consecutive hours off duty, and may not drive after the 14th hour since coming on duty. Those limits are in 49 C.F.R. § 395.3.

The same section adds:

• A 30-minute break after 8 hours of driving.
• No driving after 60 hours on duty in 7 days, or 70 hours in 8 days, depending on the carrier's schedule.
• An option to restart the weekly count after 34 or more consecutive hours off duty.

Most long-haul drivers must record their time on an electronic logging device (ELD) under § 395.8. Some short-haul drivers who stay within 150 air miles of their normal work reporting location and are released within 14 hours do not keep logs. The driving limits still apply to them, and the carrier must keep time records instead (§ 395.1(e)). Fuel receipts, toll records, and delivery times can show whether a log is accurate. Read more about truck driver fatigue.

Always after a fatal crash, and sometimes after other crashes. Under 49 C.F.R. § 382.303, the carrier must test each surviving driver after any crash that killed someone.

For crashes without a death, testing is required only if the truck driver receives a citation for a moving traffic violation arising from the crash, and either someone was treated for injuries away from the scene or a vehicle had to be towed away. The citation must come within 8 hours for the alcohol test and within 32 hours for the drug test.

The carrier should give the alcohol test within 2 hours, documents why if it could not, and must stop trying at 8 hours. The drug test cutoff is 32 hours. Whether a required test happened, and when, is a question to put to the carrier in writing. See our page on truck drivers impaired by alcohol or drugs.

The file shows what the carrier knew about the driver before and during employment. Under 49 C.F.R. § 391.51 it includes the employment application, driving records from each state that licensed the driver, a road test certificate or its equivalent, annual driving record reviews, and proof of the driver's medical certification.

Before hiring, the carrier must also investigate the driver's safety performance history with other DOT-regulated employers over the prior three years (§ 391.23), and run a full query of the federal Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse (§ 382.701), with another query at least once a year after that.

A carrier that hires or keeps a driver with a record of violations, or skips these checks, can be liable for its own negligence. The file generally must be kept for as long as the driver works there and three years after. It is one of the first records to request, and our Boston truck accident attorneys can explain what it should contain.

Carriers must systematically inspect, repair, and maintain every truck and trailer they control, under 49 C.F.R. § 396.3, and keep records of that work for one year and for six months after the vehicle leaves their control.

Two other rules matter:

• A driver who finds or is told about a defect must list it on a written inspection report at the end of the day. For property-carrying trucks, no report is required when no defect is found. A required report must be kept for three months (§ 396.11).
• Every truck must pass a periodic inspection at least once every 12 months (§ 396.17).

If an outside repair shop did the brake or tire work, that shop can share responsibility. Learn how third-party liability works when more than one company is involved.

For a for-hire carrier hauling ordinary freight across state lines in a truck of 10,001 pounds or more, the federal minimum is $750,000. Carriers of oil and many hazardous materials need $1,000,000, and certain higher-risk hazardous loads require $5,000,000 (49 C.F.R. § 387.9, as of September 2026).

Those amounts date to the 1980s. Many carriers buy more, including excess or umbrella policies. Different rules can apply to trucks that stay inside Massachusetts or haul the owner's own goods, so the actual policies need to be requested, not assumed.

The carrier's policy is only one possible source. A broker, shipper, or repair shop that shares fault may have its own coverage. In a fatal crash, our wrongful death FAQs explain how the family's claim works.

Several companies can share responsibility, depending on what went wrong:

• The motor carrier. It is generally responsible for its driver's negligence on the job, and for its own negligence in hiring, training, supervising, or dispatching.
• The truck or trailer owner. A separate company sometimes leases the equipment to the carrier.
• The freight broker. A broker that arranged the load may be liable for carelessly choosing an unsafe carrier (see the next question).
• The shipper or loader. Federal cargo securement rules start at 49 C.F.R. § 393.100. Whether the company that loaded the trailer shares fault for a shifted or spilled load depends on who was responsible for loading and securing it.
• A maintenance vendor. An outside shop that did a bad brake job can be liable.
• A manufacturer. A defective part can support a product liability claim.

A rental or leasing company is not liable just because it owns the truck, under the Graves Amendment (49 U.S.C. § 30106), but it can be liable for its own negligence. Under M.G.L. c. 231, § 85, your own share of fault is compared with the combined fault of the defendants, and defendants who share responsibility can each be liable for the full amount, with the right to seek contribution from each other (M.G.L. c. 231B).

Yes, federal law no longer blocks the claim. In Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, No. 24-1238 (U.S. May 14, 2026), the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that state negligent-hiring claims against freight brokers fall within the motor vehicle safety exception of the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act, so the Act does not preempt them.

The ruling removes a federal defense. It does not prove any claim. You still have to show, under Massachusetts law, that the broker was careless in choosing the carrier, for example by ignoring a poor safety record, an out-of-service order, or missing insurance, and that the choice contributed to the crash. Contact us to find out whether a broker was involved in your crash.

That label does not end the case, but it does not decide it either. Federal safety rules count an independent contractor driving a commercial truck as the carrier's "employee" for purposes of safety compliance (49 C.F.R. § 390.5). That definition does not by itself make the carrier liable in a Massachusetts injury case. Federal leasing rules require the carrier to take exclusive possession, control, and responsibility for a leased truck, but they expressly do not decide whether the driver is an employee or a contractor (49 C.F.R. § 376.12).

Massachusetts law helps on this point. Under M.G.L. c. 231, § 85A, registration in a defendant's name is prima facie evidence that the truck was being operated by someone for whose conduct the defendant is legally responsible, and the defendant must prove otherwise as an affirmative defense. The lease, the carrier's operating authority, and the dispatch records usually settle the question. Ask us to review them.

Interstate for-hire carriers must carry a federal endorsement, known as the MCS-90, on their liability policy. In it, the insurer agrees to pay a final judgment for public liability caused by negligent operation, maintenance, or use of the carrier's trucks, up to the federal minimum, even if a policy condition or exclusion would otherwise block coverage. The carrier then has to reimburse the insurer.

Courts have treated the endorsement as a safety net that applies when other coverage does not, not as extra insurance on top of the policy, and whether it applies can depend on the type of trip. It matters most when an insurer says the truck was not listed on the policy or the driver was not approved. A carrier's insurance filings are public through FMCSA, and our truck crash attorneys can check them.

Depending on the truck and its equipment, the evidence can include ELD records of driving and duty time, engine control module (ECM) data on speed, braking, and throttle, GPS and fleet telematics, forward-facing and driver-facing cameras, and dispatch messages. What each system records, and when it overwrites, varies by manufacturer and vendor.

Federal retention periods are short:

• Hours-of-service records and supporting documents: at least six months (49 C.F.R. § 395.8(k)).
• Required driver inspection reports: three months (§ 396.11).
• Maintenance records: one year while the carrier controls the vehicle (§ 396.3).

These are regulatory minimums. Once a lawsuit is reasonably foreseeable, a carrier can have a separate duty to keep relevant evidence longer. Bills of lading, scale tickets, toll and fuel records, and post-crash inspection reports belong on the list as well. Here is what federal truck rules require of carriers.

With a written preservation demand sent as early as possible. It tells the carrier exactly what to keep: the ECM download, ELD data, video, dispatch records, the driver file, and the tractor and trailer themselves, including brakes, tires, lights, and cargo straps, before anything is repaired or sold.

In Massachusetts, a party that knows or reasonably should know that evidence may be relevant to a possible lawsuit can be sanctioned for losing or destroying it. Courts tailor the remedy to the harm, such as barring certain testimony or allowing the jury to infer the lost evidence was unfavorable (Fletcher v. Dorchester Mutual Insurance Co., 437 Mass. 544 (2002); Mass. Guide to Evidence § 1102). Companies that are not parties, such as a repair shop, may need a subpoena or an agreement before they must preserve anything. Talk to us early so the truck and its data can be preserved.

Reviewed by Jeffrey S. Glassman, founding attorney. Updated September 2026.

This page is general information, not legal advice. Every case turns on its own facts.