Fault in Truck Accidents

Trucking Accidents – Who’s At Fault?

Do I have a case?

This is often one of the first questions our clients ask us as truck accident injury and wrongful death attorneys. One of the keys to answering it is to find out if the accident was someone else’s fault.
That isn’t always easy to determine.
Fault in a truck accident may involve driver error, negligence on the part of the company that hired the driver, negligence on the part of the company that owns the trailer, or all three. Even if the accident was caused by a mistake of the driver in the passenger vehicle, it may be possible to recover compensation if the fault of another party (such as defective brakes made by a car manufacturer) played a role in causing the injuries.

Many times, the truck driver will not tell the truth about how the collision happened. For this reason, our lawyers will hire biomechanical engineers, accident reconstructionists, and truck-driving experts to determine how the accident happened and to find out who was responsible.

The most common kind of car-truck accident is a head-on collision, followed by a rear-end collision (with the front of the car hitting the rear end of the truck).

To find out why the accident happened, it’s crucial to preserve evidence such as the truck, truck tires, skid marks, driver’s logbook, and truck GPS records (if the truck is equipped with a GPS) before that evidence is altered or destroyed. Therefore, it is important to contact a lawyer as soon as possible following the accident.