Know how truck accidents differ from car accidents
There are important differences between accidents involving passenger cars and large commercial trucks.
Due to their large size and weight, tractor-trailers and semi-trucks can cause extensive damage to smaller vehicles and people in a collision.
Truck accident claims are often more complicated to resolve than regular car accident claims. Commercial truck drivers and trucking companies must carry high liability insurance.
This increases the financial stakes in truck accident claims, and working with a personal injury attorney experienced in truck accident investigations becomes important if you have been seriously injured.
Truck accidents can cause serious injuries
If you are in a passenger vehicle hit by a commercial truck, you will likely suffer serious injuries in the accident. It is not unusual for a truck accident to cause devastating injuries requiring extensive medical treatment or lifelong care for disability.
Large commercial trucks in Texas can weigh 80,000 pounds or more with an oversize permit.
The impact of a collision involving a heavy truck often results in severe trauma to the occupants of very light 2,000-pound cars or 4,000-pound SUVs, especially if the accident occurs at highway speeds.
The types of truck accidents that our injury attorneys commonly handle include the following:
- Jackknife accidents, in which the cab and trailer of an 18-wheeler spin out of control and slide toward each other.
- Blindspot accidents are caused by a large commercial truck failing to adequately check for large blind spots on all sides
- T-bone accident, in which one vehicle collides with the side of another vehicle
- Underride collision, in which a car slides under a truck trailer, causing devastating injuries to the car’s occupants.
- rear end accidents
- head-on collision
- accidents due to brake failure
- tire blowout
The TX Department of Transportation says there were 32,562 crashes involving commercial trucks and buses in Texas in 2020. Of those accidents, 513 were fatal, resulting in 581 deaths, the highest number of any state. Another 4,400 crashes resulted in injuries, of which 1,245 were considered serious.
Most people killed or seriously injured in truck accidents are in small vehicles.
The types of injuries that our attorneys often see in truck accident claims include the following:
- traumatic brain injuries
- spinal cord injury and paralysis
- internal injuries
- fractures (broken bones)
- back injuries
- neck injuries and whiplash
- Limb loss and amputation.
After a truck accident, you may need medical treatment that includes emergency medical care, hospitalization, surgery, and rehabilitation therapy. An accident can cause a disability that requires lifelong care.
The medical expenses that result from serious truck accidents are often very high. If the accident was caused by someone else, you should not be stuck with the medical bills.
You can hold the trucking company or other at-fault party liable. Accident victims generally require experienced legal representation to force insurers to pay full and fair amounts on injury claims.
An insurer more focused on its company’s bottom line may employ tactics to pressure an accident victim into accepting a lowball settlement offer or deny the claim altogether.
A Kraft & Associates PC truck accident attorney can assist you with insurance companies and guide you through the truck accident claim process. We will help you get the compensation you deserve through negotiation, mediation, arbitration, or trial.
Injury Compensation for Crane Accidents
How Truck vs. Car Accident Cases Differ Large Commercial Trucks
To receive compensation for injuries sustained in a motor vehicle accident, the injured must be able to show who was responsible for the accident. In a car accident, this is often the driver of the other vehicle in the collision.
In a commercial truck accident, the truck driver is also most likely at fault for the accident. After a truck accident, people other than the truck driver may also be financially responsible.
A tractor-trailer or tanker truck is a commercial vehicle. The truck owner is responsible for the truck involved in an accident, especially if a mechanical problem on the truck caused the accident. A trucking company is also generally responsible for the actions of its employees.
Some trucking companies own fleets of trucks and hire drivers for their trucks. Some employ drivers and rent trucks.
Some own trucks but contract with independent drivers. Some independent drivers own their trucks. Therefore, we have identified several possible parties that may be liable for a commercial truck accident:
- Truck Driver
- truck owner
- truck driver employer
Manufacturers of trucks or truck parts. When an accident occurs due to a mechanical fault in a truck, and a defect is found, the manufacturer or the defective part may be held liable.
Wholesalers or retailers who should have known about the defective part may also be responsible. Other people may have a share of responsibility for a truck accident:
Truck Garage. Truck owners often outsource maintenance work. A repair shop might be liable if a mechanical failure that led to an accident was caused by negligent maintenance.
Cargo owner and shipping company. Many 18-wheelers carry goods that belong to another company. If a truck’s cargo is not properly loaded and secured, it can shift or spill and cause the truck or other vehicles to crash.
When this occurs, the company responsible for the cargo may share responsibility for the accident with the driver, who must ensure the safety of his cargo.
Additional salespeople. A trucking company may outsource fleet operation services, and any such third-party vendor may be liable for negligence that contributed to the accident.
This includes vendors responsible for recruiting drivers who may not have the training or experience as represented, background checks and alcohol and drug tests, and dispatching and routing trucks.
Local government and its contractors. Local governments and their contractors may be held liable for accidents if defects in the roadway or the design of the road construction/maintenance work area contributed to the truck accident.
Our investigation of your truck accident may identify multiple parties with some responsibility for the accident. Therefore, we may file more than one claim on your behalf.
This is positive because multiple claims may make more compensation available. The downside is that when there are numerous contributing factors to an accident and various parties are potentially responsible, it is more likely that insurance companies will try to deny liability or shift blame and blame each other. But will attempt to point fingers.
In a truck accident investigation, each potentially responsible party will have a legal team to minimize their role in the accident.
You need a legal team that knows how to gather the necessary evidence to prove what happened and dares to stand up and fight for you.