Truck Accident Lawyer - California

Truck Accidents

"It was like getting hit by a van." That is way people describe an event that has had a large, & often devastating, impact in their lives.

Somebody who has been involved in a van crash knows why that is. A van accident involving an 18-wheeler or semi-truck is not like a common automobile accident. A van cannot cease as quickly or maneuver  & a automobile can. Because of the greater number of cars a van can impact & the destructive force of its large hurtling mass, the destroy an out-of-control van can do in a van crash accident is much greater than most other highway accidents.

If You Are Involved in a Truck Accident then What to Do

After being involved in a van accident with a semi-truck, 18-wheeler or any other type of van, you are likely to feel overwhelmed. Thinking clearly when you are frightened & injured may be difficult. So possibly you didn't do everything right following the van accident. Don't be discouraged. The next best thing is to follow the steps below, in case you have not done so already:

• Obtain Prompt Medical Attention: If a truck crashes into your car, you and your passengers have likely suffered injuries. You may find yourself insisting that you don't need prompt medical attention to find and treat any truck accident-related injuries. Nevertheless, you should at minimum obtain a prompt medical examination. Unseen internal injuries, like brain damage and spinal cord injury, can go undetected, sometimes with catastrophic results. In addition, by not seeking medical attention soon after a truck accident, you may lose the chance to document the source of your truck crash injuries, making it difficult for your truck accident attorney to help you prove that the truck accident caused your injuries.
• Preserve Evidence from the Truck Accident: After a truck crash, it is important to preserve not only evidence of your medical condition but also evidence of what happened at the truck accident scene. The trucking company may have its "SWAT team" of experts and attorneys at the scene of the truck accident almost immediately. They want to get critical measurements and photos before the truck accident scene is cleared - which may happen before you can take them.
  
  Usually, the police at the scene take truck crash-scene photos before the truck accident site is cleared. If not, request that they do so. If your condition permits, take pictures of your own, if you have access to a camera (remember, your cell phone may have picture-taking capabilities). Subtle clues about the truck accident scene, preserved on film, may help your truck accident attorney's experts reconstruct critical evidence that can help explain - to you, to your attorney, and possibly to a judge and jury - exactly what happened when that semi-truck or 18-wheeler collided with your car.
• Preservation of the Vehicle Involved in the Truck Accident: If anyone has suffered substantial injuries, or death it is very important that that you also preserve your vehicle until you retain a truck accident lawyer. The truck accident attorney should determine, with experts if necessary, whether there has been a defect with the vehicle or its parts that may have contributed to any serious injuries suffered by the vehicle's occupants.
• Contact a Competent Truck Accident Lawyer: The stakes in a truck crash case can be very high, because of the potential for substantial injuries and other damages. Trucking companies hire experienced and specialized truck accident attorneys to fight liability and limit their damages resulting from truck accidents. You will need a skilled and experienced truck crash attorney representing you as well. Your truck crash lawyer can hire investigators, preserve evidence as needed, and communicate effectively with trucking companies, police, truck accident witnesses and your medical care providers.

As the Victim of a Truck Accident You May Be Entitled to Compensation for Your Injuries and Property Damage

If someone else is found fully or partially responsible for the truck accident that injured you, you may be able to recover compensation to the extent of the other party's culpability for some or all of these things:

• Medical Bills - for your past, present and future costs of the medical treatments;

• Property Damage - for the damage to your car and its contents due to the truck crash;

• Pain and Suffering - for the physical pain and limitations resulting from your involvement in a truck crash;

• Loss of Wages - for the time you had to take off of work to recover from the trucking accident or to visit doctors, therapists and others who are helping you to cope with your injuries;

• Impairment of Earning Capacity - for the diminishment of your ability to earn a living, due to your injuries following a trucking accident;

• Lifestyle Changes - for the loss of enjoyment in your life due to debilitating injuries resulting from your truck accident;

• Life-Care - for the ongoing non-medical needs you may have if you were badly injured in the truck crash;

• Punitive Damages - if the trucking company's intentional or reckless acts contributed to causing the truck crash that injured you.

Your California Truck Crash Attorney Can Explore Multiple Potential Causes of Your Truck Accident

A semi-truck, 18-wheeler or other large truck is capable of such destructive force that increased care and attention to safety issues is required, in order to avoid potentially catastrophic trucking accidents. Truck drivers, even more than car drivers, must constantly be attentive, alert, and in control. To protect others sharing the road from truck accident injuries, semi-trucks, 18-wheelers and other large trucks must be in superior condition. The law requires it.

With the constant vigilance required by law and common sense, as well as truck manufacturers and shipping companies, how do hundreds of thousands of truck accidents happen each year? Usually because of carelessness and poor judgment. Following are some examples:

• Driver Fatigue and Truck Accidents: A 1995 government study concluded that the main cause of truck accidents is driver fatigue. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has established regulations to limit the number of hours a truck driver may drive per day or week to reduce this problem. States may set lower limits for maximum driving hours. Regardless of the legal driving-time limits, truckers have a personal responsibility not to drive tired and cause a truck crash, due to fatigue.
• Substance Abuse and Truck Accidents: Drug and alcohol use can be a factor in truck crashes, just as with other injury-causing accidents. Trucking companies are legally bound to investigate drivers before hiring, and to monitor them afterwards, to minimize the probability of substance abuse that could cause a truck accident.
• Speeding as a Cause of Truck Accidents: Speeding in a truck or tractor-trailer can have devastating consequences: A truck traveling at 70 miles per hour has twice as much energy as a truck traveling at 50 miles per hour, as well as a much greater braking distance. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, more than one-quarter of all drivers of large trucks, like semi-trucks and 18-wheelers, involved in fatal truck crashes in 2004 had at least one prior speeding conviction.
• Improper Loading of Trucks, Leading to Truck Accidents: Improperly loaded trucks and trailers also cause truck accidents. Improperly loaded cargo may place the load's center of gravity too high, making the truck or trailer more likely to tip over. Too much weight toward the front or back of the load may also adversely affect the truck's handling, making a truck crash more likely.
• Improper Inspection and Maintenance of Trucks as a Cause in Truck accidents: Brakes, lights, and other safety equipment must be properly inspected and maintained. According to the Partnership for Safe Driving, approximately 30 percent of trucks routinely fail inspection; most such failures are due to defective brakes and tires, which could cause a truck crash.
• Product or Manufacturing of Trucks Leading to Truck Accidents: The poor design or manufacture of a truck, or the vehicle involved in the truck accident it collides against, may cause or intensify the consequences of a truck crash. An occupant of a light truck involved in a truck crash may have fallen victim to a known design defect that causes rollovers. A truck crash may involve a passenger car sliding underneath a semi-truck, with horrific consequence. Proper design and manufacture can prevent truck accidents involving these causes.
• Employer Negligence: A trucking company that neglects to carefully hire, train and supervise its drivers and maintenance staff may contribute to the cause of a truck crash when a driver falls asleep at the wheel of a semi-truck after being asked to drive too many hours, or when the brakes on an 18-wheeler fail because an untrained maintenance worker adjusted them incorrectly.

Truck Accident Statistics

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), a "large truck" is one weighing more than 10,000 pounds. An 18-wheeler tractor-trailer can weigh more than 80,000 pounds. A semi-truck or 18-wheeler rig can weigh 40 times as much as a car. That is about the ratio of a large professional football player to a newborn infant.

A large truck, traveling at a high speed among smaller vehicles is inherently dangerous, especially to a car's driver and passengers. In the approximately 416,000 large truck accidents that occurred in the United States in 2004, more than 5,000 people died and 116,000 people were injured. 77% of those victims killed and 73% who were injured were in vehicles other than the truck.

Just as truck crashes are not like car accidents, truck accident cases often involve greater injuries and pose legal problems and concerns not found in most car accident cases. That is why it is important that anyone injured in a truck crash obtains help from an attorney with experience and proven expertise in litigating truck accident cases.

Your California Truck Accident Attorney Can Help to Identify Those Responsible for Your Truck Accident Injuries

Truck accident cases can be complex and expensive to prosecute. If you have been in a truck accident, you should realize that various possible defendants may be liable and responsible for compensating you for your injuries and losses. Sorting out negligent defendants is a complicated process, and another reason why prompt investigation and liability analysis are crucial in truck accident cases. Potential defendants who may be liable to you for your injuries and property loss include:

• Parties to the Truck Accident: These can include the truck driver and drivers of other vehicles who may have contributed to the trucking accident.
• Defective Products Manufacturers and Retailers of the Truck: Product defects, present when the truck, its tires, engine parts or other components were manufactured, can contribute to a truck crash.
• Employers of the Driver Involved in the Truck Accident: The owner of a semi-truck or of a trucking company may not be at the wheel when the truck crash occurs, but that owner may be liable for the truck driver's negligence. Sometimes, the owner may also be potentially liable for punitive damages when the conduct of the owner is particularly egregious. For example, if the trucking company cut corners by requiring drivers to drive too many hours, leading to driver fatigue and a truck accident, this may lead to additional damages imposed on the truck company, in the form of punitive damages. An effective truck accident lawyer can identify the responsible parties and determine if they followed applicable rules and regulations designed to prevent truck crashes.
• Repair Facilities Responsible for the Truck's Maintenance: A repair facility that made faulty repairs to the truck that collided with your vehicle may have contributed to your truck crash. Your truck accident lawyer should have sufficient resources to investigate and pursue actions against these defendants.
• Government Entities Responsible for Maintenance of the Roads on Which the Truck Accident Occurred: Some truck accidents may occur because the government has failed to ensure that the road would not be dangerous for prudent drivers. Some truck crashes may have been preventable, had guardrails and other safety measures been in place. Your truck accident lawyer should investigate the history and condition of the truck crash site.

Difficulties with Bringing Your Truck Accident Claim

The trucking industry works overtime to produce studies and testimony in order to shift blame for truck crashes from truck drivers to passenger car drivers. An experienced and skilled California truck accident lawyer should be aware of misleading information and know how to counter these studies in court. Some of the other difficulties often encountered in bringing truck crash claims include:

• Falsification of Records: Driver overwork and fatigue are often made inevitable by pressure on truckers to falsify logs showing how long they have been on the job. Not all lawyers know the tricks the industry uses to reduce apparent drive time. A truck accident attorney should know how to discover if driver logs have been falsified. Similarly, a truck accident lawyer must be able to decipher hidden messages in a trucking company driver's manuals that convey a company's real (sometimes illegal) expectations about how to perform the job and how much to drive. Trucking industry support services sometimes facilitate log falsification, and thus truck crashes. For example, fueling stations have been known to refrain from printing the time of purchase on driver receipts, which if present could help determine how much a trucker was driving. An experienced truck accident attorney should know ways to uncover these scams.

• Company Rules Set Down on Paper But Not Followed: Federal and state regulations that are designed to reduce truck crashes by discouraging and preventing truck driver substance abuse are sometimes ignored. Attorneys experienced in truck accident litigation can identify deficiencies in the design and implementation of company procedures.

• Several Players In Control of Equipment: Tracing the origins of an equipment failure can be difficult, considering the fact that something like a bad brake might have come straight from the truck's manufacturer in that condition, might have been replaced in a shoddy manner or might have been maintained improperly. An experienced truck accident attorney, partnering with a team of investigators and experts in the field, has the best chance of pinning down the real cause of the brake failure and finding the parties responsible for your trucking accident injuries.

• Litigation Financing: Government entities and large commercial semi-truck companies have extensive financial resources they are willing to use to vigorously defend themselves against truck crash injury claims, and property losses. Your California truck crash attorney may need to hire multiple technical experts to identify the appropriate defendants in your truck crash case, analyze their level of responsibility and prove to a judge or jury that you, as the victim of the truck crash, are entitled to recovery. In serious or catastrophic injury cases, costly medical experts will also be required to show the extent of your truck accident injuries. Prosecuting a truck accident claim is complicated and requires the use of many resources. You should select a truck accident lawyer whose firm not only has ample financial resources to fight large and well-financed defendants, but has consistently shown a willingness to use its resources vigorously to obtain optimum results for truck crash victims.

• The Advantage Goes to the Swift: The trucking company probably had its representatives at the scene of the truck crash almost as soon as it happened, whereas you were pulling your thoughts together, coping with just being blindsided by an 18-wheeler. The most effective way to counter a trucking company's early advantage in truck crash cases is to obtain effective legal representation, without delay.

• Preserve Evidence: Act quickly, while evidence can still be preserved. Critical evidence, such as driver logs, computer records and on-board "black box" data - which can be decisive in proving why a truck accident occurred - must be secured before it is destroyed or disappears. Federal regulations permit trucking companies to destroy driver logs and other essential data after only six months. These items are often vital to lawyers and accident reconstruction experts in determining the causes of the truck accident. They should be retrieved and safely stored by your trucking accident attorney while they are still available.

The Reeves Law Group has extensive experience and expertise in all types of vehicular accidents, including truck accidents and tractor-trailer accident cases. We have obtained many substantial and favorable results for our clients. If you desire an immediate consultation on your truck accident, please call a California truck accident lawyer at (800) 644-8000 or email us.

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