Find Out How Truck Accidents Differ From Car Accidents

There are significant differences between accidents involving passenger cars and crashes involving large commercial trucks. Because of their large size and weight, tractor-trailers and semi-trucks can do extensive damage to smaller vehicles and people in collisions.

Truck accident claims are often more complicated to resolve than regular car accident claims. Commercial truck drivers and trucking companies are required to carry higher amounts of liability insurance. This increases the financial stakes in truck accident claims and makes it important to work with a personal injury lawyer experienced at investigating truck accidents if you have been significantly injured.

At Kraft & Associates, P.C., in Dallas, Texas, our truck accident attorneys help people whose lives have been turned upside down by semi-truck accidents. We investigate accidents involving all types of commercial trucks, including tractor-trailers, 18-wheelers, semis, box trucks, dump trucks, and delivery vans. Let us review your accident and discuss your rights to seek compensation. We’re an established law firm with friendly, knowledgeable lawyers and staff who are easy to talk to.

Call us at (214) 999-9999 or contact us online before you talk to insurance adjusters or sign any documents presented by trucking companies. We handle personal injury claims connected to truck accidents on a contingency fee basis. You will not pay a legal fee unless we recover money for you. The initial legal consultation is free.

Truck Accidents Can Cause Serious Injuries

If you have been in a passenger vehicle hit by a commercial truck, you have likely suffered serious injuries in the accident. It is not unusual for a truck accident to cause catastrophic injuries requiring extensive medical treatment or disabilities requiring lifelong care.

Large commercial trucks in Texas can weigh as much as 80,000 pounds or more with oversize permits. The impact of a collision involving a heavy truck often causes serious trauma to the occupants of the much lighter 2,000-pound cars or 4,000-pound SUVs, particularly if a crash occurs at highway speed.

The types of truck accidents that our personal injury attorneys typically handle include:

• Jackknife accidents, in which the cab and the trailer of an 18-wheeler skid out of control and pivot toward each other.
• Blindspot accidents are caused by the trucker failing to adequately check large blind spots on all sides of a large commercial truck
• T-bone accidents, in which one vehicle collides with the side of another
• Underride collisions, in which a car slides under the truck trailer, causing devastating injuries to the people in the car.
• Rear-end accidents
• Head-on collisions
• Brake failure accidents
• Tire blowouts

There were 32,562 crashes involving commercial trucks and buses in Texas in 2020, the TX Department of Transportation says. Of those accidents, 513 were fatal crashes resulting in 581 deaths, the highest number of any state. Another 4,400 accidents caused injuries, of which 1,245 were believed to have been serious injuries.

Most people killed or seriously injured in truck accidents are occupants of smaller vehicles.

The injuries our attorneys most often see in truck accident claims include:

After a truck accident, you may need medical treatment that includes emergency medical care, hospitalization, surgery, and rehabilitation therapy. A crash could lead to disabilities that require lifelong care.

The medical expenses that follow serious truck accidents are often very high. If someone else caused the accident, you should not be stuck with the medical bills. You may hold the trucking company or other at-fault party accountable. Accident victims usually need experienced legal representation to compel insurers to make full and fair payouts on injury claims. An insurer more focused on their company’s bottom line may apply tactics to pressure an accident victim to accept a low-ball settlement offer or reject the claim entirely.

A Kraft and Associates, P.C., truck accident lawyer can stand up for you in dealings with insurance companies and guide you through the truck accident claims process. We will help you get the compensation you deserve, whether through settlement negotiations, mediation, arbitration, or by going to trial.

How Truck vs. Car Accident Cases Are Different

To obtain compensation for injuries suffered in a motor vehicle accident, the injured must be able to show who was responsible for the accident. In a car accident, it is most often the driver of the other vehicle in a collision.

In a commercial truck accident, the truck driver also is most likely to be the party at fault for the accident. Others besides the truck driver also may be financially responsible after a truck accident.

A tractor-trailer or tanker truck is a commercial vehicle. The truck owner is responsible for the truck involved in an accident, especially if an accident was caused by a mechanical problem on the truck. A trucking company also is generally responsible for the actions of the people it employs.

Some trucking companies own fleets of trucks and employ drivers for their trucks. Some employ drivers and lease trucks. Some own trucks but contract with independent drivers. Some independent drivers own their own trucks. So, we’ve identified several potential parties that may be liable for a commercial truck accident:

• The truck driver
• The truck owner
• The truck driver’s employer

There are others who may have a share of responsibility for a truck accident, as well:

• Truck or truck parts manufacturer. When a mechanical failure on a truck leads to a crash and the truck is found to have had a defect, the manufacturer of the truck or the defective part may be held liable. Wholesalers or retailers who should have known about a defective part may also be held liable.
• Truck garage. Truck owners often outsource maintenance work. A repair shop may be liable if a mechanical failure that led to a crash was caused by negligent maintenance.
• Cargo owner and/or shipping company. Many 18-wheelers carry cargo that another company owns. If a truck’s cargo is not loaded and secured properly, it can shift or spill and cause the truck or other vehicles to crash. When this happens, the company responsible for the cargo may share responsibility for the accident with the driver, who has an obligation to ensure his cargo is secure.
• Additional vendors. A trucking company may outsource any number of fleet operation services, and any such third-party vendor may be responsible for the negligence that contributed to an accident. This includes vendors responsible for recruiting drivers who may not have training or experience as represented, conducting background checks and alcohol and drug tests, and dispatching and routing trucks.
• Local government and its contractors. Local governments and/or their contractors may be held liable for an accident if a roadway defect or design of a road construction/maintenance work zone contributed to a truck accident.

Our investigation of your truck accident may identify multiple parties with some responsibility for the accident. Therefore, we may file multiple claims on your behalf.

The positive side of this is that there may be more compensation available from multiple claims. The negative consequence is that, when there are multiple contributing factors to a crash and multiple parties potentially responsible, there is more likely that the insurance companies will try to deny liability or shift the blame and point fingers at each other.

Each potentially responsible party in a truck accident investigation will have a legal team downplaying their role in the crash. You need a legal team that knows how to assemble the evidence required to prove what happened and the courage to stand up and fight for you.

Contact a Truck Accident Attorney in South Texas

If you have been significantly injured in a commercial truck accident, it is vital to be represented by a firm that is experienced and knowledgeable about these types of complex claims. You will likely be up against multiple insurers’ teams of attorneys hired specifically to minimize the amounts that these companies pay out on accident claims like yours.

At Kraft & Associates, P.C., we understand that conducting a thorough investigation to identify all the parties with responsibility for a commercial truck accident is a critical part of our firm’s process of recovering full compensation for our clients.

Our legal team is skilled at investigating truck accident cases. We have access to forensic experts and other highly respected professionals when needed to help us reconstruct how and why a truck accident happened. We have recovered millions of dollars in settlements and verdicts for our clients over the decades of practicing law in North Texas.

Contact our firm today to take advantage of a free case evaluation. Whether it is accomplished through settlement negotiations, mediation, arbitration, or at trial, our Dallas, TX, truck accident attorneys are committed to helping you recover the maximum compensation you deserve.