Mapping Indiana’s Semi Crash Hotspots: A Conversation with Nick Perin

Nick Perin: Patterns and trends of what was the primary factor involved in this wreck and to be able to provide that to the public before even the government is able to provide that is extremely powerful, I think.

David Craig: I’m David Craig, a board-certified truck accident attorney who’s dedicated over 40 years to helping the victims of devastating semi-truck, large truck, and other commercial motor vehicle wrecks. When the stakes are high, you need the information to make the right decision. After tragedy strikes, many people don’t know where to begin or what questions to ask. It is my goal to empower you with the knowledge and resources you need to help you understand your rights and to protect you and your family. This is After The Crash. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of After The Crash. Today, we have a special guest, somebody from within our organization, Nick Perin, who is our senior software engineer. And I thought it would be interesting for him to talk about a new project that we’re working on. We’re working on a project that I think is pretty cool. It’s relatively new and we’re just kind of rolling it out nationwide. And it’s something that I’m really excited about, proud about, and I wanted to talk to the guy who built it. And that’s Nick Perin. So Nick, welcome to this episode of After The Crash.

Nick Perin: No, thank you for having me on.

David Craig: Let’s start off just let’s talk a little bit about yourself, a little background.

Nick Perin: Sure. Yeah. So I grew up here in Indiana, lived here my whole life. I started out looking into computers at a young age. I always loved gadgets and all kinds of fun toys like that. Then in high school, I went to Lawrence North and they have a program through McKenzie Career Center for any kind of computer related work, something to get you in that field. So they have this program where you get your A+ certification and then you can get your Network+, Server+, Security+. I went through all those classes and I just really enjoyed what we were doing in there. And I found that I had a knack for computers and we actually got to build a computer within the first year, which was a lot of fun. It’s actually a lot easier than most people think. It’s intimidating at first, but it’s fun.

David Craig: And you’re doing this in high school.

Nick Perin: Yeah. Yeah.

David Craig: That’s cool.

Nick Perin: It’s really cool. So that was mostly repairing, fixing, and you could get jobs like going to Fry’s Electronics, for instance, when they’re around and you could fix computers that way. But I ended up getting a job at the UITS Support Center, which is through IUPUI and IU Bloomington while I was attending college at IUPUI. So I decided I would major in computer science. I wanted to go on the more software side of things, but I had my certifications to help give me some spending money while I’m going through school, which was nice. And while I was there, I got my major through computer science and a minor in mathematics. And I ended up working with one of my professors there with Riley Children’s Hospital, which is a really cool, unique experience. We’re developing games for kids who were diagnosed with diabetes. And these games would just kind of explain to them what they have, how they can better take care of themselves, when they should be checking their levels, et cetera. So that was a very rewarding experience there.

David Craig: Yeah. That’s cool.

Nick Perin: Yeah. And from there, yeah, I stayed in Indiana. I was kind of debating whether or not I go to California where all the tech jobs are, but I came across a company, Prism, which I don’t believe is around anymore, but they were a startup when I joined and we had these beautiful displays where you’d have interactive… You interact with the software through a touch screen and you can also use a computer or laptop next to you, but it was a collaboration software. So think about whiteboards or having sessions where you’re presenting and you can easily share different content and collaborate that way. So that was a lot of fun and that got me even more excited to stay in Indiana because like, wow, we’re developing all kinds of cool things. It doesn’t matter necessarily where you are, it’s just the people that you’re with. And then finally I went to Angi before this position. Angie’s List was the name before and they rebranded to Angi and got to work on a lot of cool technology there. Now we’re here at the CKF building, one of the coolest things I’ve ever worked on, the maps project.

David Craig: So I think that’s… If you would’ve asked me, I’ve been practicing law for 40 years and if you would have asked me any time during the first 35 of those years if I would have ever had a software engineer on our staff, I would have said, “No.” When I first started, there weren’t even computers.

Nick Perin: Yeah. There wasn’t really much for me to do back then.

David Craig: I can remember us debating, should we get a computer or should we stick with a dedicated word processor? We had meetings, I mean months, this took months before we ever made the decision, we voted to go ahead and get a computer. We’re like, “How are we going to get all of our forms that were on the dedicated word processor into this computer?” It was amazing how much time and money went into making that decision. Now it just seems silly. I’m thinking we went ahead and went with a computer obviously.

Nick Perin: Back then it was probably a lot of floppy drives too, right?

David Craig: Yep. It was, absolutely. But now we’re in the business, in the personal injury business, but so much of what we deal with is information.

Nick Perin: Absolutely. Yeah.

David Craig: And obtaining information, controlling information, being efficient. And so it makes a lot of sense to bring people in with the knowledge that you have to help us do a good job of that. And that was certainly one of the main things was like, okay, can you help us be more efficient? Can you help us organize our information, share our information, protect our information? And then with the advent of AI, and how will that impact us? And so having someone who understands computer software, programs, hardware makes a lot of sense. And so I still don’t see a lot of law firms doing it, but I think that’s certainly the future.

Nick Perin: Yeah. No, it definitely seems like CKF has consistently been innovating and kind of above or quicker to do things than other firms. But just talking with other firms as we go out into events, I’m finding that there’s small teams of software engineers and this is definitely the future. You mentioned data in particular, that’s becoming more and more relevant just in all industries. So it’s not surprising that law firms are starting to look at this as well. And at the end of the day, data is king as they say, right?

David Craig: Yeah. And law firms have always historically been slow compared to other businesses, I think. And I think they look at it and say, “Okay, I need a lawyer. I need a paralegal maybe. I need an assistant, intake division.” And then they’ve always kind of used third parties to help them with their information or whatever. And most of the time… I belong to a lot of different national organizations, and most of the time people are just complaining nonstop about these box companies.

Nick Perin: Yeah.

David Craig: Because you have to adapt and fit to them. And so if the way you do business isn’t the same as the way they want you to do business, it’s not necessarily a good fit.

Nick Perin: Right.

David Craig: And so they struggle and they don’t mesh well. And then they get frustrated and they switch to the next company and then the next company and the next company.

Nick Perin: Right. And that all takes time and money.

David Craig: It does.

Nick Perin: Yeah. It’s definitely, when you find a good software, create a custom one, you should see just a giant force multiplier. And if you find that right piece of software, that can be an absolute game changer for the firm. So it makes sense to build something around the needs of the firm rather than trying to fit into a preexisting setup.

David Craig: And so we’re excited and our staff was excited about doing it. And so we’re working along all those areas. But in the back of my mind, so there was always this idea that I had. And I can remember talking to somebody down in Texas years and years and years ago about it. And I shared my idea with multiple people and we never could figure out how to go about doing it. And the idea was… Because I do truck wrecks. I mean, I’m an attorney who’s board-certified in truck accident law. And so we always are trying to put out information that’s helpful to the public. And one of the things that I was always frustrated with was that there’s this lag in information about where truck wrecks are happening, why they’re happening. And the federal government collects all that data, but it takes a long time, takes years to actually take it and publish it. And I thought, man, it would really be nice if we could do it maybe not as accurate, maybe we don’t have every wreck, but if we could have most of the wrecks and we could track them and kind of know where they’re at, why they’re happening, when they’re happening on some type of map, interactive map. And most people looked at me like, “Well, why would you do it, number one? Two, what do you get out of it? Three, is it even possible?” And most people thought it wasn’t possible or the people I talked to at least. And they would roll their eyes at me. And when I talked to you about it, you didn’t roll your eyes.

Nick Perin: No, no, I got excited. That sounds awesome.

David Craig: And you’re like, “Yeah, I can do that.”

Nick Perin: No, it’s incredible with, especially AI, the type of things that you can accomplish these days. But yeah, the idea seemed sound and we created a proof of concept right out of the gate just to say like, “Hey, we can see that this is a viable option.” And after that, we hit the ground running.

David Craig: And so what we wanted to create was Semi Crash Map. And so we wanted to have a map that tracks semi-wrecks in every state, 50 states. And we’re here. We’re headquartered in Indiana, although we have semi cases all over the country, but we wanted to start with Indiana and work on Indiana and then kind of get… Our proof of concept is, does this work? Can we do it? And so talk a little bit about what’s involved, where we started at and what was involved, what was the idea?

Nick Perin: Oh yeah. Well, the main thing is collecting data. There’s so much data out there, but at the same time, sometimes it’s difficult to access. So getting that portion down was probably the biggest piece and then being able to display it in a way that is presentable and useful was very nice. So we use all kinds of different technologies, from AI to third party libraries. It’s on a React Stack. So we’re using Next.js, which is pretty common. And yeah, there’s a lot involved for sure, but getting that data is definitely the biggest hurdle that we had to get over in Indiana. And once we figured that out, it was easy to go out to the other states.

David Craig: And the other thing is, so we talked to our attorneys and they recommended that we get a patent. Had you ever applied for a patent before?

Nick Perin: First time, yeah.

David Craig: And that’s involved. So we have applied for… We have a patent pending for the entire country on our Semi Crash Maps, but we had to go through an attorney. We had to hire and provide all the information and do all that. And that’s time-consuming as well.

Nick Perin: Absolutely. Yeah.

David Craig: But our attorneys advised us to do that. And as an attorney, I listen to other attorneys that I consult with. Well, tell us a little bit, so what is this map? What is the Semi Crash Map?

Nick Perin: Yeah. It’s a really unique site. So when you enter it, basically you just see a map with a bunch of semi-wrecks that are map markers on the map, and selecting one of those map markers will give you information about the crash that occurred in that location and the time for which it happened. From there, you can read information about that specific crash, but also on the side, in the side panel, you’ll see all kinds of different resources available to you to kind of help guide you if you’ve recently were involved in a semi-crash or just want to get more information on what’s involved when a semi-crash happens, you can get some information in that side panel. So one of the things that I find very useful about the map is looking at my route that I typically take either to go to the grocery store, friend’s house, work, places that I go frequently and just seeing the wrecks that are along my typical route. And after seeing that, I’m like, “Oh, maybe I should switch how I go this way.” And I’ve just become more cognizant of where some hotspots are in my day-to-day life. And it’s been very useful for me personally.

David Craig: So the folks out there who are listening, you can go to semicrashmap.com and you can pull up the website and take a look at it. And so like Nick said, so let’s say you live in Richmond, Indiana and you want to know about the I-70 or US 40, both of which go through or around Richmond. And so you’re looking at that and well, you can look and it’ll show you all the semi wrecks. There’ll be little map markers and like you said, you can click on them and it’ll give you information then about each one of those wrecks. And you can look at the whole state, you can zoom out, you can look at the whole state, you can zoom in, you can go to specific areas, specific highways. And man, there’s a lot more semi or commercial motor vehicle wrecks than what people probably think there are.

Nick Perin: Absolutely. Yeah.

David Craig: Is that surprising to you?

Nick Perin: It was definitely. And yeah, it’s wild to just take a look at it. And in fact, it was so much. We had to do a couple different things to make the data more presentable for whoever visits the site. So for one, we started clustering map markers. In certain areas when you zoom out, you just see just so many map markers to the point where you could barely even click on anything. So one thing that we did was we’d create a special icon that says there’s 20, 30, 40 crashes in this area. And when you click on it, you kind of zoom in and start seeing more granular data. So that was one approach. And then another one, we had to actually add a filter by date time to say maybe someone who’s visiting the site is interested in the last six months versus since we’ve been collecting data. And if you were to not have that filter, you’d see thousands of map markers in the state of Indiana, for instance, and it becomes too much. So when you first visit the site, you’re not actually going to see all the map markers, but if you ever wanted to change that, there’s a filter in the top left corner to really give you a full idea of how many wrecks there are in Indiana.

David Craig: And so I think for folks that don’t know, I mean, so the federal government has not released, or they just now are releasing 2024 data. You can go to semicrashmap.com and you can see 2025…

Nick Perin: Exactly.

David Craig: … the wrecks in 2025; that’s not even available through the federal government yet. And you can look at Indiana and check it out and see the number of wrecks there are. And you can look at each one of them and individually and like you said, zoom in, and you’ll see there are certain areas that have a lot more crashes than other areas. And I know that we can provide… So one of the things that we also can… We provide this information to the press. So the news organizations that are out there that are looking for information about highways, truck wrecks, specific truck wrecks and/or just trends in truck wrecks, the news can also go in and look at this as well. And we’ve had some people who’ve done that.

Nick Perin: Absolutely. Yeah.

David Craig: So if I’m at home and I pull this up on my computer, do I have access to the information that summarizes it, that says, “Okay. Here’s why. Here’s how many wrecks there have been on I-70 or here’s the cause of the wrecks.” Or is that something that we have that the just general public does not have?

Nick Perin: You could definitely go in there and count the amount of wrecks, but to kind of get a summary, we release data over time and points of interest that we find would be valuable for people to know more about. So we have our own backend that includes all the different statistics related to Indiana. We can search by county, road. We could even look at situations where, what was the primary factor involved in this wreck and we can see kind of patterns and trends of different information there. So all that is extremely valuable and to be able to provide that to the public before even the government is able to provide that is extremely powerful, I think.

David Craig: Yeah. I mean, one of the things I wanted to know is, as a truck accident attorney, I wanted to know as much information as I can get on truck wrecks. Why are they happening? Where are they happening? And so the public, they can go and look on individual wrecks. They can click on them. They can count them up if they wanted to. They could analyze them, but we actually collect that data ourselves. And then we utilize that in the information that we put out. At Craig, Kelley & Faultless, we are a personal injury law firm. We’re headquartered in Indianapolis, although we have lawyers licensed in Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana. And we do truck cases in all those states. And so the map has truck wrecks in every one of those states, as well as every other state of the United States. And we’re rolling out more information, more data. And it’s just helpful to me to be able to look at that and analyze that and see, do we have some type of systematic problem on a roadway or in a city or in types of the trucks, the equipment or trucking companies?

Nick Perin: Yeah. Absolutely.

David Craig: And so it’s information and information’s power and that’s one-

Nick Perin: Powers change.

David Craig: Yeah. And that’s one of the reasons why we do this podcast is we want to provide the public with power and information does that. And so that’s one of the things that I hope people gain out of it. I mean, there’s different ways that lawyers can help the public. In our firm, we do podcasts. I’ve written books. We do the semi-map crash project. We do blogs. I’m guests on other people’s podcasts. I speak at seminars. I think this year I’ve spoken four different places all over the country. And so by sharing all that information and knowledge, we help other lawyers learn how to do these things. We help each other and we provide information to the public. And I think that’s something that’s unique about Craig, Kelley & Faultless. And we now can provide even more information because of you, because you set up this project. And I was hoping that maybe we could delve a little bit into, since we do have 2025 data and we have data up to the present on 2026, I’m just kind of curious as what did we learn about 2025?

Nick Perin: Yeah. There’s quite a bit of accidents in Indiana in particular. So we can review some of this data and then you can follow our pages for more statistical information as we gather it. But let’s review 2025 and we can kind of do a side by side. Right now we have the first half of 2026 and we’ll just kind of compare.

David Craig: Sure. Which highway, which roadway were there more wrecks?

Nick Perin: Now you have the information in front of you, but if you had to have guessed, would it align?

David Craig: You know what? I think I would’ve guessed wrong.

Nick Perin: Yeah. I think I would’ve, too.

David Craig: I would’ve guessed I-70.

Nick Perin: Yeah. That’s what I would’ve…

David Craig: Because I-70 seems to be… I just got hired in two recent semi-wrecks on I-70, here within the last week or so. And so I see more wrecks on I-70 that we represent folks. And maybe it’s because I have an office in Richmond, Indiana. I have an office in Indianapolis. I have an office in Avon out in Hendricks County, which Hendricks County is… So I-70 runs through Richmond, Indianapolis as well as Hendricks County. And so maybe that’s why I see more wrecks in that, but I certainly see a lot on I-70 and I would’ve probably guessed I-70 first and then I-65 second.

Nick Perin: Okay. Well, you’re very, very close, but in 2025, I-65 actually had more wrecks from our data. We had a total of 193 wrecks on I-65. I-70 came in second with the most wrecks at 115, and then probably not surprised to many, I-465 was third at 98 wrecks.

David Craig: And that’s shocking when you think about it. Again, remember folks, these are commercial motor vehicle wrecks. So these aren’t just car crashes. These are crashes that involve commercial motor vehicles. And so you look at it, I-65, 193 wrecks in 2025. I-70, 115 wrecks. But then you think about how long those roads are. I-70 goes from Ohio to Illinois. I-65 goes up to Illinois all the way down to Kentucky. And it’s a long stretch of road. But then you look at I-465, which is not nearly as long, and there were 98 wrecks involving commercial vehicles on 465 in 2025. And that’s scary. And when I think about it now, I’m like, oh my gosh, I just signed some folks up this morning. I do get a lot of wrecks on I-465 involving commercial motor vehicles. And that is really an astronomically high number, I think, for just a roadway that goes around Indianapolis.

Nick Perin: Absolutely. Yeah. And with I-65 and I-70, yes, they’re extremely long stretches of road, but you can also get on the Semi Crash Map site and then see exactly where the pockets are where these accidents typically happen. You can actually find some pretty interesting patterns just looking at the graphics there.

David Craig: And so in 2026, was 465 still a major place for the first six months?

Nick Perin: Yeah. It’s still a top contender for wrecks. So it came in fourth where we have 36 wrecks, and so far what we’re seeing for the first three: I-65 has had 86 wrecks so far, I-70, 75 wrecks, I-80, 54 wrecks. So it’s interesting even just looking at the statistics where, oh wow, these roads, at least so far, are consistently having the most wrecks. Just something to watch out for whenever you’re on those roads. Right?

David Craig: Yeah. Well, and I-69 in the last two years has been in the top 10 as well. And I-80 is not surprising because that’s up north. And so that’s heavily trafficked interstate. So I guess you look at Indianapolis, Marion County, you’ve got I-65 going through there. You’ve got I-70 going through there; you’ve got US 40; you’ve got 37, 69 coming down into there. Where does Marion County, Indianapolis rank as far as number of semi-wrecks compared to other areas of the state?

Nick Perin: Yeah. Not too many surprised. I think people wouldn’t be too surprised to know that Marion County is ranked number one in Indiana right now with a whopping 314 wrecks in 2025. That’s quite a bit. And then the following two in 2025 are Lake County at 189 wrecks, Allen County at 61 wrecks. So you can see that Marion has quite a bulk of majority with these wrecks.

David Craig: What surprised me was in 2025, you had Boone County in there. I mean, Boone County, it does have high- interstate [that] goes by there, 69 and—is it 65—goes through Lebanon or by Boone County. And so you have a lot of traffic in that area, but I was surprised it isn’t. Now in first half of 2026, it’s not in there. In Wayne County, which does not surprise me, Wayne County. I also communicate with a lot of truckers and I represent truckers who are hurt by other truckers, so truckers get hit by another trucking. And a lot of people complain about the quality of the road surface between the Ohio line and Indianapolis on I-70. It’s horrible and there’s almost always construction going on.

Nick Perin: Oh, yeah.

David Craig: And what we see is construction just unfortunately leads to semi-wrecks. And so we see that in 2026, first half, one, two, three. Wayne County is the fourth heaviest or most heaviest truck wrecks.

Nick Perin: Yeah. And the first three within 2026 are identical for 2025, Marion County, Lake, Allen, 114, 85 and 29 respectively. With this kind of information though, we’re able to take this and start diagnosing why is this happening and look at those stretches of roads just exactly like you suggested with Wayne County that without this kind of knowledge, we can’t advocate for change. So it’s very valuable to see this kind of information.

David Craig: And then one of the things that we track is when are these wrecks happening? What day? What time? And it changes, but in 2025, let the audience know what days and time were the most dangerous to be on the roadways.

Nick Perin: Yeah. So for 2025, the day of the week is Monday and the time of day that we typically see the most wrecks is at 3:00 PM. Then we also pulled the day and time combination, so not just throughout the week, but the day and time combination. Monday at 3:00 PM and Tuesday at 8:00 AM, Thursday at 3:00 PM all tied for the highest chance of having a semi wreck.

David Craig: Thursday has been pretty consistent over the years that I’ve noticed it as a bad day to be on the highways. And what’s the safest day? In 2025, what was the safest days to be on the highway?

Nick Perin: Both 2025 and 2026, the lowest risks days are Saturday and Sunday.

David Craig: And then what days were the worst in the first six months of 2026?

Nick Perin: The day of the week, Wednesday, time of day, 3:00 PM, and the day and time combo, Friday at 3:00 PM.

David Craig: It’s one of those things that, for me, if I’m getting ready to travel or doing something, you just look at it and say, “Well, guys, is there a better time to travel than another time?”

Nick Perin: Right.

David Craig: There’s similar statistics for medical malpractice. Is there a time that’s worse to have surgery, better, and you want to pick a time where there’s less malpractice occurring, and so you can look that up and you can figure that out. And believe me, before I have a surgery, I do. I can look at the doctor, I look at the facility, and I look at the time and the date. If you’re going to travel and you’re heading to Florida for a trip or a business trip to Chicago, or wherever, it doesn’t take that long to look at our map and say, “Okay, where are these wrecks happening at? Where do I need to be more careful? And what day and time is the best time to drive?”

Nick Perin: Definitely. Yeah.

David Craig: And part of it’s because of the traffic. So when you have more semis on the roadway, you’re going to have more danger. When there’s more construction zones, they’re going to be busier, open during the week, Monday through Friday versus Saturday and Sunday. So luckily when there’s no construction slowing up traffic, there’s less likely to be a wreck. And so some of that makes sense.

Nick Perin: Yeah. Definitely. And I should say that while looking at this data, Monday through Friday, they’re all fairly close in terms of how many wrecks we had on each of those days. But Monday for 2025 and Wednesday for 2026, the first half were the most, but just barely.

David Craig: One of the things that we obviously want to look at is, and I’m not so concerned about what causes wrecks in all of our wrecks, but what causes wreck, what is the cause of a wreck caused by a semi? So if a semi truck driver causes a wreck, they put that on the police reports and it’s in the news. And so what is the major causes of wrecks on the semi driver’s part?

Nick Perin: Yeah. So for 2025, that would be unsafe lane movement. So think about maybe accidentally exiting your lane for a little bit and bumping into a car next to you. It doesn’t take much when you’re driving a semi to really cause a lot of damage.

David Craig: And the problem with that is, and so why that’s a big deal is that, so semis have no zones or they have blind spots and quite frankly they shouldn’t have, but with all the modern equipment they have, they have blind spot indicators, they have cameras and they have better mirrors. So there should be very few blind spots on a semi. Unfortunately, a lot of the older equipment doesn’t have the blind spot indicators, doesn’t have all the cameras, doesn’t have all the equipment, and not everyone runs the right kind of mirrors or sets their mirrors upright. And so they’ll have these blind spots. And so when they move their semi over, it’s a really common mistake. And unfortunately it can be very tragic because a semi can move over and a car is, let’s say alongside the trailer and the car can get caught up underneath the trailer and it can be devastating. If it’s up by the tractor, usually the blind spot is bigger on the right hand side, the passenger side of the semi. And so a car can be passing a semi, be up by the tractor and it hits it and then it spins it in front of the semi and the semi drives it down the roadway. So it doesn’t surprise me, unsafe lane movement, but that’s something that completely can be avoided.

Nick Perin: Absolutely.

David Craig: There should never be a wreck caused by unsafe lane movement. So when a semi-truck driver says that, “I didn’t see them,” that’s not an excuse or a valid excuse. That’s an explanation, but it should never be a valid excuse. So when a semi driver says that, they’re trying to escape blame, but the reality is they should not have moved their vehicle over to the right or to the left without knowing what was there.

Nick Perin: Or even doing something that distracted them in the cab where they accidentally moved the steering wheel just a little bit. And speaking of the technologies, I imagine that semi-trucks have it. I mean, most modern cars have it, but is there any kind of lane keep assist feature that semis use?

David Craig: Yeah. Unfortunately, the most modern semis, a lot of semis on the roadway, they don’t have the equipment or they don’t purchase it. It’s there, it’s available, but they don’t purchase it. Now it’ll be interesting to see as technology continues to advance, as they go to driverless semis, obviously that’s all data. I mean, it’s all computer driven and camera driven. And so they’ll have all that. So they will never go out, should never switch lanes without knowing.

Nick Perin: Right.

David Craig: But right now, as long as we have human drivers, which we have throughout the United States, you’re going to have problems with that. But my point is, I guess you really shouldn’t. And if somebody’s in a wreck that somebody says, “Well, I couldn’t see them,” that’s not an excuse, that’s not a legal excuse. And the driver of the truck is still responsible.

Nick Perin: Yeah. And even once we get the driverless semis, people like to trust fully in technology, but engineers make mistakes too. You can only trust it as much as you trust the team that built it. So there’s likely still going to be plenty of problems that we encounter there but-

David Craig: Different kind of problems, but there will be problems.

Nick Perin: Yeah. I think so. I think it’ll be safer at the end of the day.

David Craig: So what was the second leading cause of wrecks by semi drivers?

Nick Perin: Yeah. In 2025, I don’t know if we gave the number for unsafe lane movement, but that was 170 wrecks that we counted. For following too closely, which is number two, there was 160 wrecks.

David Craig: So the second one back in 2025 was unsafe lane movement was number one, following too closely is number two. And I looked at the data you provided me for 2026 and it looks like just they flipped. It looks like following too closely for the first six months of 2026 was the number one cause and unsafe lane movement was number two. And I think following too closely, folks have to understand because I’ve talked to the police and so police officers will put following too closely when a semi rear ends a vehicle in front of it. And that’s what they put on the wreck. Now, obviously they’re following too closely if they hit them.

Nick Perin: Right.

David Craig: I mean, if you hit somebody, you’re too close. But the reality is those wrecks are caused by something else other than being too close most of the time. And so usually we look at it and we see driver fatigue is a big factor. The drivers, they’re hauling this stuff all over the country and they get tired, and they’re on the interstate and the highway, maybe have their truck on cruise control, maybe just driving, and they’re kind of dozing off and traffic slows up for—either because of traffic or because of a wreck or because of construction zones. And when they slow up, they’re not prepared to stop and they run into the back of the stop traffic or slow traffic. And then the other thing we see is driver distraction. If the semi driver’s distracted and we see all kinds of stuff. I’ve got cases where we know from the driver facing camera after the crash that semi drivers are on their cell phones, which are not supposed to have their cell phone in their hands when they’re driving a semi. You’ll see them, we’ve had several where they’re watching movies on laptops or iPads.

Nick Perin: Wow.

David Craig: And so they’re all sitting there looking at it and by the time they look up, if they’re going 50, 60 miles an hour, that’s a lot of distance they travel in a few seconds.

Nick Perin: It doesn’t take much.

David Craig: And so they look up and they all of a sudden all the traffic stopped or slow down. So driver’s distraction, fatigue are two of the major reasons you see following too closely. And so again, there never should be a wreck caused by following too closely. The rules, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, the CDL manuals, industry standards, trucking manuals, all require them to be able to travel at a distance where they can stop their vehicle. So the faster they’re going, the more distance they need. If it’s bad weather, if their visibility is reduced, then they need more distance. And so they never should be too close, never should hit somebody in front of them if they’re following the rules of the road.

Nick Perin: Yeah. One thing that I found interesting when I started working here, it’s kind of counterintuitive to think about, when a trailer has more weight in their trailer, they end up taking less time to stop compared to if it was an empty trailer. And it sounds like just because the way that the braking system works, you get more traction. Is that right?

David Craig: So one of the things we did, which is kind of cool, I took our attorneys out to Montana and we actually, we took vehicles. They took vehicles, they took an SUV and they saw how at a certain speed, I think it was 50 miles an hour, how long does it take you to stop an SUV? And so we measured it and saw it. And then we took a semi-tractor trailer loaded versus a semi-tractor trailer empty. And I think one of the things I want my attorneys to do, they got to drive semis, they got to ride in semis, they got to watch skid test. You’re always trying to learn more. You want to be educated so that when you handle these cases, you know what you’re talking about and you know what to look for. But following too closely is certainly one of the leading causes that I see and looks like in 2025 failure to yield right of way was third. I guess that was the same in 2026 as well.

Nick Perin: Yeah.

David Craig: And then ignoring traffic signals. And we see that a lot in the cities. Semis rolling and they don’t want to stop because they have to regear and start over. And so they want to roll through. And it’s kind of frustrating because they think we’re bigger than you, so you’re going to have to stop.

Nick Perin: Right.

David Craig: And so they just go ahead and run the traffic stop sign. So they go ahead and run the stoplight. And unfortunately, people die because of that. And I’ve got cases right now where we’ve been hired by semi drivers who just either backed across the roadway when they shouldn’t have, who ran stop signs or ran stoplights.

Nick Perin: Oh, man.

David Craig: It’s sad.

Nick Perin: Yeah. Things that shouldn’t be happening on our roads.

David Craig: And then failure to maintain lane, I’m not really sure. I mean, it’s an unsafe lane movement. There’s not probably a whole lot of difference between the two, but those are… If you throw that in, some type of unsafe lane movement or failure to maintain your lane, that would make those the probably number one cause of wrecks in both years.

Nick Perin: Definitely. And it’s not surprising to see for 2026, the first half that speeding too fast for the weather conditions is in the top five. There’s different kind of rules and regulations required for semi-truck drivers when driving in snow and if they should be driving at all in some adverse weather. And of course Indiana gets hit pretty hard during the winter, so it’s not uncommon to see these.

David Craig: And it’s frustrating though from my perspective because you look at it and say, okay, so there were in the first half of 2026, 27 wrecks involving semis or commercial motor vehicles due to “speed too fast for weather conditions”. And yet, when a professional truck driver says, “I want to get a CDL,” they have to promise to follow Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations. They have to promise to follow the CDL manual. And we trust them with a 40-ton vehicle. And so they say, “I’m going to follow these rules or I won’t drive it.” Now, not everybody drives a truck, not everybody has to drive a truck and you don’t have to follow those same rules, but the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations say that you have to use extreme caution when you’re faced with hazardous conditions. Well, going too fast is not extreme caution. The CDL manual says that you decrease your truck by 50% if you’re driving on packed snow. You decrease your speed by a third if you’re driving on wet pavement. And if you’re driving on ice, you get off the road as soon as you can. Again, if the cause of the wreck is speed too fast for weather conditions, these are truck drivers who 27 times in the first half of 2026 may easily have killed somebody or injured somebody because they did not fulfill the promise they made, which was, “I will follow the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations. I will follow the CDL manual.” And so as a plaintiff lawyer, that’s always frustrating.

Nick Perin: Yeah. Absolutely. So with that in mind, speeding too fast for weather conditions, is that something that you’d be able to pull from the logs within the semi-truck to see at the time of the crash?

David Craig: Yeah. So not the logs necessarily, but you would look at the ECM, the electronic control module. And so every semi has electronic control, some people like to say the black box.

Nick Perin: Black box. Yeah.

David Craig: And so when they hit their brakes, they locked in the distance or the speed, the steering, and a variety of other things. So as soon as we get hired, we go in and we take that apart. We look at it and we analyze that data. Now, sometimes they have electronic logs and GPS, and so sometimes you can track how long it took a truck to get from A to B.

Nick Perin: See the speed.

David Craig: And you can look at the speed that way, but you don’t really need to for a wreck. You can just pull the ECM.

Nick Perin: Interesting. Yeah.

David Craig: So with respect to this map project, I mean, how interesting has it been for you because it’s something completely out of the blue that you had no knowledge of, had probably a few years ago, if I would’ve asked you, just like you asked me and said, “Would I have a software engineer?” I would’ve said no. You probably, if somebody would’ve asked you, would you be working for a personal injury law firm, a truck accident firm, you probably would’ve said no.

Nick Perin: I probably would’ve said no. Yeah. No, you’re absolutely right. This project has been very eye-opening to me. I enjoy learning new things about different industries and it’s just been a huge just load of information dumped on me and I’ve been enjoying every bit of it. When you came to me with this project, it just seemed so interesting and an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. Being able to create a site to inform people that could potentially save lives, I mean, that’s the best kind of job that I can ask for.

David Craig: Yeah. Well, Nick, I appreciate it. Anything else you want to add about the Map project?

Nick Perin: No, no. I’ve been enjoying it and thanks for having me on.

David Craig: Yeah. Well ladies and gentlemen, thank you. This is another episode of After The Crash. Thanks for listening to another episode of After The Crash. If you or someone you know has been involved in a semi-truck wreck and you want to talk, go to ckflaw.com or give me a call at 1-800-ASK-DAVID. If you want additional information about semi-truck wrecks or how to pick the right attorney, check out my two books, Semitruck Wreck: A Guide for the Victims and Their Families, or It’s Never Been Easier to Hire the Wrong Attorney. Both of them are available on Amazon or you can download them for free on our website, ckflaw.com.