Trucking Accidents
In sports like boxing and wrestling, participants
compete by weight divisions – lightweight,
heavyweight, etc. That makes for a more even
match. But that’s not the case when you
take to the road in your passenger vehicle or
light truck. On our nation’s roads, you
have mismatches all around you any hour of the
day, any day of the week, with any of the 8
million or so large trucks registered in the
United States, trucks weighing from 10,000 pounds
to 80,000 pounds. When you are involved in one
of those “mismatches” with a large
truck, you or someone in your vehicle is likely
to get hurt, or worse yet, killed.
Lots of those “mismatched” collisions
occur. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
reported that 5,190 people lost their lives
in large truck crashes in 2004. Some 768 of
those fatalities were occupants of the trucks,
the rest were occupants of other vehicles or
non-occupants. A staggering 120,000 men, women
and children were injured in large truck crashes.
In 2003, there were 436,000 police-reported
crashes involving large trucks, with 4,289 resulting
in at least one fatality (a total of 5,036 killed),
and 85,000 resulting in at least one nonfatal
injury (a total of 122,000 injured).
According to the American Trucking Association,
passenger vehicle drivers cause up to 75% of
all car-truck crashes. That means that at least
25%, one of every four car-truck crashes, is
caused by truck drivers. Truck drivers are good
people. Like all people, though, truck drivers
make mistakes and those mistakes all too often
cause injury and cost lives. Like all people,
they have to be accountable for their mistakes.
They have to be accountable if they choose to
speed or if they drive recklessly or aggressively.
They have to be accountable if they drive under
the influence of alcohol or drugs, or if they
drive oversized or overloaded trucks, or trucks
that are improperly or poorly loaded so the
load shifts causing loss of control. They have
to take responsibility if they fall asleep at
the wheel or drive while drowsy or so fatigued
that their judgment is clouded. And the truck
drivers, the trucking companies that train or
employ them, and sometimes the larger retail
corporations that contract with the trucking
companies, should be accountable if the driver
is inadequately trained, or his or her truck
has brake failure or some other mechanical or
equipment failure. One
caveat: They are only accountable if you take
action to make them accountable. The
Hubbell Law Firm is here to help you take action!
A lawsuit is the only real course of action.
Any person who is injured or has lost a loved
one in a truck accident can sue as long as some
other person or entity, except the person suing,
is at fault for the accident. A lawsuit is poor
compensation for the pain one goes through with
injuries from a car-truck collision, or the
heartache and grief one bears after a loved
one is killed in a car-truck collision, but
the money recovered in a lawsuit can make life
easier on the injured person and his or her
family, or the survivors of a victim tragically
killed in a car-truck collision. For an injured
person, the law provides for compensation, or
what is termed “recovery of damages,”
on the basis of past and future medical expenses,
past and future loss of income or earnings capacity,
pain and suffering, and possibly, punitive damages.
For the survivors of a person who was killed
in a truck accident, damages may be recovered
for 1) economic losses, 2) emotional distress,
including loss of society, love and comfort,
3) any conscious pain and suffering prior to
death, and 4) medical expenses for accident-related
treatment prior to death.
If you have anything more than minor injuries,
you will need legal assistance for justice to
be yours. Keep in mind, while the injured person
is on the way to the hospital for emergency
treatment, the wheels of the trucking company
and its insurance company are starting to turn
in an all-out effort to defeat your claim, or
at least, minimize it. Oftentimes, their investigators
arrive at the scene even before the accident
has been cleared, gathering evidence, photographing
the scene, interviewing witnesses and reminding
the driver of instructions given in training
as to what to say and what not to say when involved
in an accident. You need someone working on
your side at the earliest possible time to secure
vital evidence before it is destroyed, investigate
the case factually and legally, and determine
fault and establish liability against any potential
defendants.
The law limits the amount of time in which
an injured person or the survivors of someone
killed in a car-truck accident may file legal
action for injuries. This time limit, called
the statute of limitations, differs from state
to state and with a variety of factors. Regardless
as to whether that time limit is near or far,
the time for taking action is now if you have
been injured or have lost a loved one from your
family in a car-truck accident. We at the Hubbell
Law Firm welcome your call for a no-cost consultation.
Contact us at our
toll-free number, 1-800-821-5257, or by e-mail.
We have the knowledge, competency, experience
and resources to handle even the most difficult
claims. You have rights, but only if you protect
them and use them. Your future hangs in the
balance of the decisions you make.
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