Truck Accident Liability

Answer:

After a commercial truck crash, the trucking company is going to put enormous resources into trying to prove that the crash was your fault. Specifically, they will want to know whether you got a traffic ticket at the scene. What they’re really asking is, “Can we blame this crash on someone other than the truck?”

So, how do you go about protecting yourself?

First off, the police officer at the scene will investigate. They’ll talk to the people involved in the crash. They’ll talk to witnesses. They’ll look at evidence like skid marks or video. They’ll try and see if one or both drivers broke any laws. Then they’ll decide on whether to give a ticket and to whom.

But who gets a ticket and who the police think is at fault isn’t the final word on fault. You see, often, even the police officers don’t understand fully the special rules that big commercial trucks need to follow.

Next, the insurance companies will investigate, and they’ll try to work out who they think is involved. Insurance companies rely a lot on the police report. The insurance companies for these big truck companies specialize in protecting their truckers and their companies in these big crashes.

Because insurance companies are in the business of protecting their truckers, don’t be too concerned about it when they try and tell you it was your fault after a crash. One tactic that most all insurance companies use is to simply deny a claim at first. They know that a lot of people will just believe them and go away. I’ve seen so many crashes where at first the insurance company says my client wasn’t at fault. It’s just what they do.

As your lawyers, we’re not bound by who got the ticket or what the insurance company thinks. We’re going to dig in, take pictures, interview witnesses, look at the damage photos, look at repair estimates for the cars and truck. We’re investigating for you. We know the special rules that apply to a commercial truck case. We understand there’s more going on in a truck crash than what it looks like on the surface. We’ll investigate all those things for you.

As soon as an insurance company finds a way to blame you, it doesn’t go on much deeper than that. They just check a box against the traditional traffic laws, and they deny your claim. There’s a lot of factors in a truck case that contribute to who had some fault for the crash and how that fault gets shared. If you have any questions, especially about a commercial trucking case, call us for free. Let us help you get sorted out.