A traffic accident involving a commercial truck, can be much more catastrophic than an ordinary car accident. In the event that you or a loved one is involved in an accident with a commercial truck, you may be entitled to recover compensation for your injuries by bringing a legal claim against the responsible parties. We can assist you with your claim and finding immediate medical treatment.
A typical fully-loaded large commercial truck can weigh 80,000 pounds or more, while an average passenger automobile weighs approximately 3,000 pounds. Because of this size disparity, and due to the basic laws of physics, any collision between a commercial truck and another vehicle is likely to result in serious, even fatal, injuries. While statistics show that truck drivers are generally much more careful on the road than automobile drivers, and thankfully the incidence of fatal crashes involving trucks and other large vehicles has declined in recent years, large truck crashes still accounted for 5,350 fatalities and 133,000 injuries in 2001.
The unique danger posed by commercial truck accidents can be made worse depending on the nature of the freight the truck is carrying. For example, if hazardous or flammable materials are on board, secondary injuries attributable to such dangerous cargo can result, including burns and respiratory injuries.
As is true in most personal injury cases involving vehicle accidents, the primary legal theory of liability in commercial truck accident cases is "negligence." In a nutshell, a person or business entity (the defendant) is negligent if they failed in their duty to exercise reasonable care under the circumstances, and the plaintiff's injuries resulted from that failure. So, a person injured in a commercial truck accident must show that:
-
Defendant (driver, trucking company, or other party) owed the plaintiff the duty to exercise a reasonable degree of care to avoid injury, under the circumstances. This element is almost always automatically met, by virtue of the fact that all drivers on the road owe a legal duty of reasonable care to fellow drivers, passengers, and pedestrians;
