In the U.S., trucks carry essential goods and products to every city and town. Commercial trucks are vital to our way of life, but they can also put motorists, passengers, and pedestrians at risk. If you’re injured in an Indiana truck accident, contact an Indiana truck accident attorney at once.
What are your legal rights if you’re injured in a collision with a large commercial truck? How is liability determined after a truck collision in Indiana? Can a trucking business be held liable for a driver’s negligence? What steps will you have to take to recover compensation?
If you’ll continue reading this short introduction to truck accidents, liability, and the rights of accident victims, these questions will be answered, and you’ll also learn why, after you’ve sustained an injury in a truck accident, you must have the advice and services of an Indiana truck accident lawyer.
What Makes Truck Accidents Different?
A large commercial truck’s momentum and weight can cause catastrophic, devastating injuries in a collision. Every traffic accident is potentially deadly, but statistically, commercial truck accidents are the most disastrous traffic accidents.
A large commercial truck, fully loaded, may weigh forty tons or more; a typical passenger car weighs around 3,000 pounds. If an automobile and a truck crash into something at a high speed, substantially more damage will be done by the truck.
What Injuries Are Commonly Sustained in Truck Accidents?
Catastrophic injuries, permanent disabilities, and wrongful deaths are all too frequently the consequences of truck accidents. The injuries commonly sustained in truck collisions include but are not limited to spinal cord injuries, tissue injuries, bone fractures, and traumatic brain injuries.
If you lose a limb, suffer a severe spinal cord injury, or sustain a traumatic brain injury because a truck driver or another party was negligent, you will need to recover the maximum available compensation amount for your long-term medical treatment and care.
Who May Be Held Liable for Truck Accidents?
When a commercial truck is involved in a traffic accident, and even if the driver of the truck was clearly at-fault, it may still be difficult to identify other parties who may have liability.
You will need to discuss the case immediately with an Indiana personal injury lawyer. Your personal injury lawyer will conduct an investigation and identify any parties who may have liability.
Trucking companies and other employers will generally be liable for the negligence of their employees under the legal principle known as “respondent superior,” so long as the negligence occurred within the “course and scope” of an employee’s duties.
Who Else May Have Liability?
Along with trucking companies, those who may share liability for a truck collision include leasing companies, cargo companies, contractors, subcontractors, truck manufacturers, and parts manufacturers.
If the cargo on a truck has not been properly loaded, if tires or brakes were manufactured defectively, or if the truck has been maintained improperly or neglected entirely, more than one defendant may have liability for a truck collision and the resulting injuries.
How Is Liability Determined After a Truck Crash?
Determining liability for a truck accident requires a careful review of medical, toxicology, police reports, eyewitness statements, video, and photographs from the accident site.
It’s a complicated process, but if you’ve been injured or permanently disabled in an accident with a large commercial truck, an injury claim that names one or more than one defendant may be entitled to substantial compensation.
Can Drivers Reduce the Number of Truck Accidents?
Keep plenty of distance between large trucks and your own vehicle. If you must pass a truck, do it on the truck’s left side, because the blind spots are on the right side. After passing, remain in your lane until there is plenty of distance between your vehicle and the truck.
When a large truck makes a turn, give the driver all the space you can. When turning right, a truck driver will swing first to the left. If you see this, don’t get on the truck’s right side. It will swing back to the right, where you’ll be trapped. The same idea in reverse applies to left turns.
Drivers should know where the blind spots are on trucks and avoid those spots. The best strategy while you’re driving is simply to keep as far away as possible from large commercial trucks.
Truck accident numbers could be reduced with more driver training, video that allows truck drivers to see their blind spots, and a change in the way truck drivers are paid and scheduled. For now, keep your distance from the large commercial trucks in Indiana, and drive carefully.
What Compensation Can a Truck Crash Injury Victim Receive?
If you are injured in an accident with a commercial truck, you may bring a personal injury claim to recover compensation for your medical expenses and projected future medical costs, your lost wages and projected future lost wages, personal pain, suffering, and related damages and losses.
You have been reading a general introduction to truck crashes and liability in Indiana, but if you are injured as the result of a truck accident, you must have candid, personalized legal advice from an Indiana truck accident attorney who knows how to recover the compensation and win the justice that the injured victims of negligence deserve and need.
When Should You Speak to a Truck Accident Attorney?
Contact that attorney as quickly as possible after you’ve been injured. Indiana law generally gives truck accident injury victims two years from the date of the accident to file an injury case, but realistically, you certainly should not wait two years. Do not even wait two weeks to make the call. Insurance companies are investigating, and you need someone on your side.
Your personal injury claim is more likely to prevail if your attorney can examine the evidence while it’s fresh and speak to any witnesses before their memories fade.
It costs nothing to meet with an Indiana truck accident lawyer and learn more. If you take legal action, you will pay no attorney’s fee until and unless your lawyer recovers compensation on your behalf.