Truck Traffic & Crash Data in Lea & Eddy Counties
Lea & Eddy Counties By The Numbers (2024)
323
Heavy-truck crashes in Lea County, up from 280 in 2023 and above its 2020 to 2024 average of 249
226
Heavy-truck crashes in Eddy County
52
People killed in crashes across Lea and Eddy counties
Source: NMDOT 2024 county crash reports, prepared by the UNM Traffic Research Unit
Lea County recorded 2,064 crashes in 2024, and 21 of its 30 fatal crashes happened on rural roads. Eddy County recorded 1,767 crashes, 18 of them fatal. Some of the worst stretches have drawn state and federal attention:
Roads Under State and Federal Scrutiny
US 285, Loving to the Texas Line
In 2019, the U.S. Department of Transportation awarded NMDOT $12.5 million to rebuild this stretch. Heavy use by oil and gas transport vehicles had caused pavement failures, sinkholes, and bridge damage that New Mexico’s congressional delegation said contributed to an elevated level of traffic deaths.
NM 128 Near the Texas Line
In 2019, NMDOT designated 45 miles of NM 128 as a safety corridor with double fines for moving violations, based on its crash and speed data.
Oilfield workers face this risk every day they drive to a lease. A study of New Mexico oil and gas worker deaths from 2008 to 2018 found that vehicle crashes were the leading cause of death, at 36%. Across the whole industry, NIOSH found that the Permian Basin, on both sides of the state line, accounted for more oil and gas worker deaths from 2014 to 2019 than any other basin.
The Trucks & Schedules Behind These Crashes
The trucks on Lea and Eddy county roads are mostly working for the oilfield: water haulers bringing in water for fracking and taking produced water to disposal, frac sand trucks, crude oil tankers, vacuum trucks, hotshot trucks carrying parts, and company pickups carrying crews. Bringing a single new Permian well online takes close to 1,000 truckloads, according to the Texas A&M Transportation Institute.
The same federal hours-of-service rules apply in New Mexico, including two oilfield exceptions. Drivers whose trucks are used only for oilfield work can restart their weekly limit after 24 hours off instead of 34. Specially trained drivers of specially built well-servicing trucks, such as frac pumps and wireline trucks, can log waiting time at a well site as off duty. FMCSA has said the waiting-time exception doesn’t cover drivers who haul sand or water to and from the well, so a water hauler who logs hours of waiting as off-duty time is outside the rule. Comparing the driver’s electronic logs against GPS and fuel records, which is how investigators catch ELD fraud, is one of the first things we do in these cases.
From the Video: Hours Behind the Wheel
“It shouldn’t surprise me when I find someone has been driving 20 hours straight without taking a break.”
New Mexico Law: Who Can Be Held Responsible
An oilfield truck crash usually involves several companies, and New Mexico law treats each of them a little differently.
Companies That May Share Responsibility
The driver’s employer
The well operator
The service company that dispatched the load
A freight broker
A maintenance vendor
A truck or parts manufacturer
Each Company Pays Its Own Share
New Mexico generally uses several liability, so each defendant pays only its own percentage of fault, with exceptions for things like intentional conduct and an employer’s responsibility for its driver. If a responsible company is left out of the case, its share of fault can go unpaid, so we work to identify every company involved before filing.
From the Video: The Full Story
“What was it the trucking company was doing and why? And making sure that not only do we get the full story of what went wrong, but hopefully we can prevent that trucking company from doing it to another family.”
Workers’ Comp & Your Employer
If you were hurt on the job, workers’ comp is generally your only remedy against your employer. You can still bring a claim against any other company whose negligence caused the crash. New Mexico also allows a claim outside comp when an employer acted willfully: it intentionally did something without just cause that it could reasonably expect to cause the injury, it expected the injury or utterly disregarded the consequences, and that conduct caused the injury. A worker can bring that claim while receiving comp benefits.
The Oilfield Anti-Indemnity Act
New Mexico voids contract terms that let a company off the hook for its own negligence on work involving an oil or gas well, and a Texas choice-of-law clause can’t get around it. A New Mexico appeals court has said the Act doesn’t reach the transportation of oil and gas itself, so when a truck hauling crude or gas away from the lease causes a crash, the contracts between the companies may decide who pays. We review those contracts early.
Filing Deadlines & Fault Rules in New Mexico
New Mexico Deadlines
3 years
To file an injury lawsuit, generally counted from the crash
3 years
To file a wrongful death claim, counted from the date of death
90 days
To give written notice of a claim against the state, a county, or a city (six months in a death case)
Source: NMSA 1978 §§ 37-1-8, 41-2-2, 41-4-16
The notice deadline matters when a government entity played a part, such as a county or city responsible for a road defect, and it runs on top of the filing deadline. A wrongful death claim runs on the same three-year clock as an injury claim, starting from the date of death.
New Mexico uses pure comparative fault. You can recover damages even if you were partly at fault, and your recovery is reduced by your share. That rule is more favorable to injured people than the Texas rule, which bars recovery above 50% fault, so it matters which side of the state line the crash happened on and where the case is filed.
Talk to Our New Mexico Oilfield Truck Accident Lawyers
Our New Mexico office is at 8801 Horizon Boulevard, Suite 340, Albuquerque, NM 87113. Call (505) 499-4859 for a free consultation. We also handle New Mexico truck accident cases of every kind and New Mexico oilfield accidents on the lease itself. The Permian Basin crosses into Texas, where oilfield truck crashes around Midland and Odessa fall under Texas law, including a two-year filing deadline.
