Accidents involving Trucks

After a semi truck crash, your injuries can be life altering. Worse,someone you loved and relied upon may have been killed. While there’s nothing alawyer can do can end your suffering, the person responsible for your wreck should pay your medical bills, lost wages, and other damages.

Remarkably, there are more than three accidents a minute where an American is injured or killed in a truck accident. Thousands of people in this country every year are injured or lose their lives in truck accidents involving tractor-trailers, 18-wheelers, big rigs, fire engines, semi trucks, and other large commercial vehicles. Poor driving, overworked drivers that are being paid by the mile, oversized truck loads and various other unsafe practices increase the dangers in operating these heavy trucks that weight up to 80,000 pounds (the average passenger car weights approximately 3,000 pounds). Many personal injury lawyers approach truck accident caseslike any other motorvehicle accident case. This may be appropriate for minivan, pickup truck, or sport utility vehicles (SUV), but commercial big rig, 18 wheel trucks accidents are very different. Not only are the vehicles different, there are specific laws designed largely to help accident victims of truck accidents. The truck driver may have violated a specific statute or regulation with respect to the freight he was carrying or how long he had been driving before the accident. A remarkable number of trucks accidents occur because of the fatigue of the truck driver who is paid to get as far as he can as fast as he can. Also to be considered is whether the company that hired the driver may also be responsible under the theory of negligent entrustment or negligent supervision if they failed to properly screen the truck driver before the accident or if they failed to properly train the truck driver. You would be amazed at how many operators of trucks, particularly big rig trucks, are improperly trained or have unacceptable driving records. There can also be a claim for negligent maintenance, a related legal theory that can be pursued in truck accident cases when the company and/or truck driver failed to properly maintain the truck.