Commercial truck laws are the federal and state regulations that govern how large trucks operate: who is allowed to drive them, how long drivers can stay on the road, how trucks must be maintained, and how much weight they can legally carry. These rules exist because commercial trucks share the road with much smaller vehicles, and a single violation can turn a routine haul into a catastrophic crash.
Munley Law has built its truck accident practice around these regulations for more than 65 years. The firm helped pioneer trucking litigation as a legal specialty, and three of Pennsylvania’s four board-certified truck accident lawyers practice here. Knowing these rules inside and out is often what determines who is held responsible after a crash.
What Are the Key Commercial Truck Laws?
Most commercial truck regulations come from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), the federal agency that sets safety standards for commercial vehicles and the companies that run them. These are the rules that most affect road safety and the ones that most often come up after a crash.
Driver Qualifications and Licensing
Commercial drivers are held to stricter standards than regular drivers. To earn a commercial driver’s license (CDL), a driver must pass written and skills tests and earn endorsements for what they haul, such as hazardous materials or tanker loads. They also have to keep a clean record, pass regular medical exams, and take part in drug and alcohol testing. When a company puts an unqualified driver behind the wheel, everyone on the road is at risk.
Hours of Service Regulations
Probably the regulation that truck drivers and trucking companies violate, these rules limit how long a trucker can drive before resting. Under FMCSA rules, a property-carrying driver can drive up to 11 hours within a 14-hour workday, must take a 30-minute break after 8 hours of driving, and cannot exceed 60 hours in 7 days or 70 hours in 8 days before taking a 34-hour break to reset.
Vehicle Maintenance and Inspections
Trucking companies must keep their vehicles in safe working order through a regular inspection and repair program, and drivers must inspect their trucks before and after every trip. Skipped maintenance leads to brake failures, tire blowouts, and other breakdowns that cause crashes.
Weight Limits and Load Securement
Federal law caps how much a truck can weigh based on its axle configuration, using the Federal Bridge Gross Weight Formula, and cargo must be secured with proper tie-downs, blocking, and bracing. An overloaded or poorly secured truck is harder to stop, more likely to roll, and more likely to spill its load across the road.
Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) Program
The FMCSA’s CSA program scores trucking companies on safety across seven categories, including unsafe driving, hours-of-service compliance, maintenance, and drug and alcohol violations. Carriers with poor scores face warning letters, roadside inspections, and out-of-service orders, and a company’s CSA record can reveal a pattern of safety problems.
Contact a Truck Accident Lawyer at Munley Law
Call Us At 844-686-5397 What Happens When a Trucking Company Breaks These Laws?
When a trucking company or driver violates these laws, the consequences are not only regulatory. An hours-of-service violation, a skipped inspection, or an overloaded trailer can become key evidence that someone was negligent, and that evidence often points to more than one responsible party, from the driver to the trucking company to the cargo loader.
Proving how a FMCSA violation caused a crash is its own process, and it is where having a lawyer who knows these rules matters most.
If you were injured in a crash with a commercial truck, the truck accident lawyers at Munley Law can review which regulations may have been broken and what your claim is worth. Contact us for a free consultation. There is no fee unless we win your case.
Daniel W. Munley
Daniel W. Munley is an award-winning personal-injury attorney and champion of plaintiffs’ rights. For decades he’s won multi-million verdicts and settlements and is recognized as a national leader in truck and rideshare litigation, including a record $26 million truck settlement in Northeastern Pennsylvania and a $20 million recovery in 2024 for life-altering commercial-vehicle injuries.
Reviewed by Bernadine Munley, Esq., Personal Injury Attorney at Munley Law, on June 9, 2026.
