Semi-Truck & Commercial Vehicles
The trucking company’s team was on scene before the road reopened.
Major carriers dispatch rapid-response investigators to serious collisions. They photograph, measure and interview while the other driver is still in an emergency room.
Why these are different
It is not a big car accident. It is a different case.
Some of this evidence has a shelf life.
Electronic logging data, engine control module data and dashcam footage are retained by the carrier — and only for so long. The earlier a preservation demand goes out, the more of it still exists.
A loaded tractor-trailer can weigh twenty times what a passenger car does. That physics is why these collisions produce catastrophic injuries, and it is why the industry is regulated federally rather than left to ordinary negligence rules.
Interstate motor carriers operate under Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration regulations covering how long a driver may be on duty, how vehicles must be inspected and maintained, how drivers must be qualified and screened, and how cargo must be secured. Each of those requirements creates a record. Each record is a place a case can be proved.
What we look for
- Hours-of-service data. Electronic logging devices record driving time. Fatigue cases are frequently proved out of the carrier's own records.
- The engine control module. Speed, braking and throttle in the seconds before impact.
- Maintenance and inspection files. Brakes and tyres, and whether known defects were repaired or deferred.
- The driver qualification file. Licensing, medical certification, testing and prior violations.
- Dispatch records. Whether a schedule was achievable without breaking the rules.
- Loading and cargo securement. Overloaded and shifting loads cause rollovers and jackknifes.
Who is actually liable
Often more than the driver
One of the practical differences in commercial vehicle cases is that responsibility rarely stops with the person behind the wheel. Depending on the facts, a claim may involve:
- The motor carrier — for hiring, training, supervision, and for scheduling that made compliance impossible.
- The company that owns the trailer, where it differs from the tractor.
- A maintenance contractor that serviced the vehicle.
- The shipper or loading facility, in cargo-related failures.
- A parts manufacturer, where equipment failed.
- The broker who arranged the load, in some circumstances.
Identifying the right defendants early matters, because each carries its own insurance and its own records — and because commercial policies are written at levels that can actually cover a catastrophic injury.
The other side's timeline
Their investigator was there before the road reopened.
Major carriers maintain rapid-response protocols for serious collisions. A team is dispatched to photograph, measure, and interview witnesses while the injured driver is still being treated.
Hour one
Carrier notified. Investigator dispatched. Counsel engaged.
Day one
Scene documented on the carrier's terms. Witnesses interviewed. The driver's account recorded with a lawyer's help.
Week one
Vehicle repaired or released. Data begins ageing out of retention windows. An adjuster calls the injured person, warmly.
Questions
Truck collision claims, answered
No. A responding officer arrives after the fact, often without the carrier's electronic data and sometimes with only one driver conscious to explain what happened. Reports are evidence, not verdicts, and they are regularly contradicted by the truck's own recorded data.
Sooner than for an ordinary car wreck. The filing deadline is not the pressing issue — the evidence is. Logging data, engine data and video are held by the defendant and are not kept indefinitely. A preservation letter early is worth a great deal later.
They work for the carrier or its insurer. Be polite, decline to give a recorded statement, and speak with a lawyer first. Anything you say in the first days — when you do not yet know how badly you are hurt — will be quoted back later.
Then you may have both a workers' compensation claim and a claim against the at-fault carrier. Coordinating the two matters, particularly around liens and the order in which things resolve. See workers' compensation.
No cost to find out
Tell us what happened. We'll tell you honestly whether you have a claim.
Including when the answer is no. The consultation is free, it obligates you to nothing, and you can have it in English or Spanish.