What Is the Truck Accident Claim Process?

Truck accidents have the potential to cause serious damage. Tractor-trailers and other large vehicles take up a whole lot of space on roadways across the country—and lots of people don’t even know how risky they are. Nor, in the aftermath, do they know what process they need to go through to resolve their truck accident claim.

How Can I Know I Have a Truck Accident Claim?

No one can tell you that your claim is valid with absolute certainty, but after a free initial consultation with a reputable local truck accident lawyer, you’ll get to hear whether your claim could hold up if you elect to move forward.

• If you were in a truck accident, you’ve already met the first requirement to have a truck accident claim
• Reach out to an attorney as soon as possible before you assume that you do or don’t have a case
• You don’t have to suffer severe injuries or face thousands of dollars’ worth of damages to have a case

A Key Component of the Claim Process: Determining Liability

You will have to work with your attorney to determine who you think should be held liable for your truck accident.

You may feel surprised to find that many parties could bear responsibility for a truck accident:

• Truck drivers: Truck drivers, just like any other drivers, can behave negligently or recklessly on the road. If a truck driver was disobeying road laws, acting aggressively, or endangering the people around them in some other way, the driver might be held liable for your accident.
• Other drivers: Many truck accidents involve multiple vehicles (even if not every vehicle is damaged). If a semi-trailer accident can be traced to a third-party driver, he or she could be held responsible.
• Truck maintenance companies: Truck maintenance companies are supposed to ensure that the large trucks on our roadways are safe to operate. When a maintenance company is negligent and performs work that leads to a truck accident, the company might be held liable in court.
• Truck fleet managers and trucking companies: Many trucking companies hire unqualified drivers, and just as many also pressure drivers into driving beyond federally mandated limits.

Is the Truck Accident Claim Process Different From the Standard Vehicle Accident Claim Process?

For the most part, truck accident lawsuits look similar to lawsuits for crashes involving standard vehicles. It’s the same basic framework behind a case: an injury survivor was hurt due to someone else’s negligence or recklessness, he or she suffered damages, and he or she wants to work with a lawyer to recover those damages.

The only differentiating factor between truck and regular vehicle accident claims lies in their scope. Lots of truck accidents are more severe than many normal car accidents. Semi-trailers and other large vehicles can cause a significant amount of damage due to their size, and since some are tricky to operate, there is often more of a risk of driver error.

More damage often translates to a longer claims process because accident survivors need to heal and nobody is rushing to give up lots of cash. Outside of that, the truck accident claim process is not much different from the standard vehicle accident claims process.

A Brief Overview of the Standard Truck Accident Claim Process

• Sign a written agreement with a truck accident attorney: This agreement would include an acknowledgment that your legal relationship has begun, pricing information, terms for your agreement, and disclaimers from your attorney.
• Communicate with other parties involved in the case through your attorney and/or law firm: You would need to report the accident to your insurance company; you can share your lawyer’s contact information with trucking company claims adjusters and other insurance companies.
• Discover, collect, document, and organize evidence: Police reports, accident reconstruction, medical documentation, photographs, other evidence.
• Deliver an injury demand letter: Injury demand letters layout how accident survivors have been impacted physically and financially by their injuries.
• Negotiate a fair settlement.
• Go to trial if negotiations fail.

Factors That May Influence the Length of Your Truck Accident Settlement

• The large insurance policies attached to semi-trucks: Most semi-trucks carry large insurance policies. This can impact how an attorney approaches your case and how interested insurance companies are in trying to convince you to take other avenues.
• More than one person or entity is responsible: Any vehicle accident can involve several liable parties; it is more likely to be true in a truck accident, which could involve company vehicles and may even place liability on fleet managers or maintenance companies.
• Your wellbeing: Truck accident cases can usually only proceed once there’s a clear understanding of how an injury survivor has been impacted; and, usually, the more severe your injuries, the longer it will take you to get back to good health, and the longer it will take to get details your physical condition outside of your injuries.

You can push your claim forward by taking the following steps.

• Contact the billing departments for your medical providers to make sure your finances are handled.
• Check your employer’s policies to determine what returning to work may (or may not) look like.
• Talk to your creditors if the cost of medical bills or legal services makes it difficult to keep up with bills.

These will not guarantee your claim settles tomorrow, but they will help cut down on your time spent working on case specifics in the long run:

What Damages are Recoverable After a Truck Accident?

Truck accident lawyers help their clients pursue a myriad of damages after an accident. Different people have different experiences during and after these accidents. You may not wish to pursue the same forms of compensation as another truck accident survivor.

Your attorney can help you decide which damages to pursue.

• Past, present, and future medical bills associated with the accident: Including emergency transport, specialized care and equipment, long-term therapies, etc.
• Pain and suffering: Almost any time someone suffers a truck accident, he or she experiences pain; but some circumstances lead to more physical suffering and pain than others. Truck accidents, in particular, have the potential to cause enough pain and suffering that a survivor may wish to pursue compensation for those damages. Trucks are huge vehicles that often cause significant damage during a crash.
• Mental anguish: The experience of a truck accident and everything that comes afterward can change a person’s life forever. If you’ve suffered mental anguish due to a truck accident, you are not alone. There are skilled truck accident lawyers who can help you recover compensation for your mental anguish.
• Disfigurement and/or disability: Some truck accidents lead to disfigurement or disability; when this is the case, most survivors opt to partner with their attorneys to pursue disfigurement and disability damages.

What Are Tractor-Trailers, Anyway?

A tractor-trailer is a vehicle used to transport large loads. Oftentimes, tractor-trailers have eighteen wheels—sixteen-wheeled tractor-trailers are less common, but do exist.

The best way to understand tractor-trailers is to break them up into their two separate components: tractors and semi-trailers.

The American Trucking Association gives definitions for both:

• A tractor is a truck; usually, they’re designed with the specific intent of hauling semi-trailers; tractors include a fifth wheel mounted over their rear axles
• Semi-Trailers are truck trailers hauled by tractors; semi trailers support their own rears using their wheels; they rely on the fifth wheel mounted to a tractor to support their fronts

Tractor-trailers are extremely large trucks that are operated in two parts. The front segment of a tractor-trailer pulls the truck trailer behind it.

It is generally accepted that large trucks like these are difficult to control. Tractor-trailers, in particular, pose some challenges because of their two-part setup.

There’s a lot of them, too:

• About 3/4 of the resources in America are transported via truck at some point
• Over 5 percent of our country’s full-time jobs relate to trucking

What are Common Injuries Caused by Truck Accidents

Somebody who survives a truck accident may suffer a myriad of injuries; and, while some survivors are fortunate to escape with relatively minor injuries, most are not so lucky. Many truck accidents cause catastrophic damage due to their size and considerable weight.

Some of the most common injuries sustained during truck accidents include:

• Lacerations
• Bruising
• Burns
• Back injuries
• Spinal cord injuries
• Head injuries
• Neck injuries
• Loss of a limb
• Loss of a sense or senses
• Internal bleeding

What are Frequent Causes of Tractor-Trailer Accidents

Oftentimes, if an accident involves a tractor-trailer or other large truck, that accident can be traced back to one of three factors.

• Improperly loaded cargo: Tractor-trailers exist to move cargo. Even so, many of them are improperly loaded and pose a lot of danger to drivers on the road. There are extensive guidelines that dictate how to safely load cargo into tractor-trailers; improper loading can lead to spillage or could cause an entire truck to lose balance and turn over. Most large trucks carry tens of thousands of pounds of cargo when they’re fully loaded—that’s a big risk on the road
• Driver error: Any driver can make an error on the road and cause an accident. Large truck drivers are not an exception. Think of any negligent or reckless behavior a typical driver might display and a truck driver can act the same way. Some truck drivers drive aggressively or operate a vehicle under the influence. Other drivers may get distracted by things in their cabins or on the road. Many trucking companies push their drivers to work beyond their physical limits. Exhaustion is not uncommon in tractor-trailer drivers and leads to needless injuries and deaths every year
• Improper truck maintenance: All vehicles need maintenance to function normally. Maintenance helps keep cars and trucks from presenting unnecessary risk. Large trucks like tractor-trailers, in particular, rely heavily on this maintenance. Most cargo vehicles are also driven thousands of miles every week and they need regular service. Some trucking companies try to evade maintenance requirements or miss service when they can’t keep track of all their vehicles. This is exceptionally dangerous

More Causes of Truck Accidents – Road Conditions, Other Drivers

Road conditions and signage can cause truck accidents.

• Poor road conditions make it difficult and even dangerous to drive. If drivers are forced to use roads with inadequate road markings, potholes, or other risks, they may get into accidents.

While signs are supposed to help keep drivers safe, sometimes they do not.

• Lots of signage is improper, damaged, or unclear; some places even have missing signage.

Truck Drivers Are Supposed to Follow Federal Laws That Concern Sleep. They Don’t Always Do This

There are federal regulations in place to help promote safe truck driving. Truck drivers receive specific legal instructions about when they can operate their work vehicles.

With that said, many fleet managers do not abide by these rules and pressure their drivers to ignore these rules as well. It’s important to know the guidelines that are meant to keep people safe on the road, but you should remember that truck drivers may not follow them.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Hours of Service Regulations state that truck drivers cannot:

• Drive for more than 11 hours following a 10-hour break.
• Drive beyond the 14th consecutive hour after coming on duty (following being off-duty for 10 hours).
• Drive after 60/70 hours on duty in 6/8 consecutive days.

How Can a Truck Accident Attorney Help Me?

A truck accident attorney can help you pursue compensation for the damages you’ve experienced after a semi-trailer accident in the most efficient way possible. A truck accident attorney can help you navigate the complexities of the legal system. If you’re facing calls from insurance agents or trucking corporations looking to take advantage of your situation, legal counsel can help.

Your lawyer could help explain legal concepts to you and serve as a liaison between you and other entities. And your truck accident lawyer will probably charge you nothing out of pocket to do these things, working instead on a form of a commission called a contingency fee agreement.

In other words, you have nothing to lose by calling a truck accident lawyer right now.

Michael T. Gibson, P.A., Auto Justice Attorney
2420 S. Lakemont Avenue
Suite 150
Orlando, FL 32814
Phone: 407-422-4529