All Arizona industries have specific injuries that are common to the trade. For the trucking industry, those primary injuries are back and shoulder injuries. Back injuries happen for a variety of reasons that can be argued when workers’ compensation claims are filed late in a career, but shoulder injuries are actually very common and can be attributed directly to work duties. The constant strain on shoulders while driving is the first consideration. However, many shoulder injuries occur in direct accident situations or from having to crank each load to the trailer hitch for coupling. And this is not to mention those drivers who have other manual labor duties when loading and unloading shipment cargo.

Safety training

Most shipping companies and their workers’ compensation insurance companies recognize this situation for truck drivers who must also do significant work other than driving, much of it putting stress on the shoulders that are already being taxed while in transit. As a potential deterrent to the increased filing of workers’ compensation claims, many companies are now putting a focus on safety training for truckers to make them more aware of the long-term damage that can be done by cranking loads to tractor hitch level.

Repetitive motion disorder claims

Repetitive motion injuries are indeed claimable workers’ compensation issues even when there is no definitive accident or injury report. However, proving repetitive motion injury claims is different from an accident injury filing. They are strongly contested in many instances even though there is significant evidence to suggest the correlation. Many times there is even a potential personal injury claim outside of the Arizona workers’ comp system when employers are lax in safety standards or require workers to perform work in potentially negligent situations where the duty of reasonable care is being disregarded.

Shipping companies and workers’ compensation insurance companies are generally exempt from a general damage personal injury claim when cases are filed in Arizona. Details of how the injury developed matter significantly, and in-depth injury claim evaluation is often needed when filing a claim regarding a repetitive motion disorder or injury.