If someone has contacted you after a trucking accident and identified themselves as an investigator for the trucking company, for the carrier’s insurer, or for a third-party investigation firm retained by either of them, you are not dealing with a neutral fact-finder. You are dealing with a professional whose job is to build the documentary […]
What If the Truck Was Overloaded
An overloaded commercial truck is not simply a heavier vehicle that does more damage when it hits something. It is a vehicle whose fundamental handling characteristics — its braking distance, its stability in curves, its response to sudden steering inputs, its susceptibility to rollover, and the forces it imposes on the road surface beneath it […]
What If the Truck Driver Was Fatigued?
Fatigue is the most underacknowledged cause of serious trucking accidents in the United States, and it is underacknowledged for reasons that are not accidental. The trucking industry’s economic model depends on freight moving as fast as possible over as many hours as drivers can legally, and in some cases illegally, sustain. The regulatory framework that […]
What If the Truck Driver Violated Hours of Service Rules
A hours of service violation in a commercial truck accident case is not simply evidence that the driver was tired. It is evidence that the driver, and potentially the company that dispatched them, violated a specific federal safety regulation that exists precisely because the government has determined that driving beyond those limits creates an unacceptable […]
How Long Do Trucking Companies Keep Data After an Accident?
The answer depends entirely on which type of data you are asking about, and the differences between them are not small variations on a single theme. Some data disappears within hours. Some is retained for six months by regulation. Some must be kept for three years. Some exists in forms that the regulation does not […]
What If the Trucking Company Is Out of State
The trucking company that hit you does not have to be based in Missouri — or in whatever state the accident happened — for you to bring a full claim against them. Interstate commerce is the core business of commercial trucking, and the legal framework governing these cases was built to accommodate exactly this situation. […]
What If the Truck Driver Was an Independent Contractor?
If you have been injured by a commercial truck and the trucking company is telling you, or you have already heard through channels, that the driver was an independent contractor and therefore the company is not responsible for what happened, you are encountering one of the most deliberately constructed and most frequently deployed liability shields […]
Can I Sue the Trucking Company or Just the Driver
You can sue the trucking company, and in most serious commercial truck accident cases you should. The driver is typically a defendant as well, but the trucking company is almost always the more important defendant from a practical standpoint, and in some cases there are additional defendants beyond both of them whose liability has nothing […]
What Is the Trucking Company’s Liability After an Accident?
When a commercial truck is involved in a collision that injures someone, the instinct is to focus on the driver as the person who caused it. The driver was behind the wheel. The driver made the choices that preceded the crash. But in commercial trucking litigation, the driver is frequently not where the meaningful liability […]
What to Do After Being Hit by a Semi-Truck
A collision with a semi-truck is not a car accident with a larger vehicle. It is a fundamentally different legal and investigative event that activates a set of obligations, evidence sources, and liability theories that do not exist in a crash between two passenger cars. The actions taken — and not taken — in the […]