In most all cases, accidents involving commercial trucks are catastrophic due to the size and the weight of the vehicles that are involved.
Property damage is more significant.Serious injuries are more prevalent. And the consequences are more severe, especially if the freight on the truck is hazardous or flammable.
If you’re a victim in an accident involving a truck, and you’ve sustained injuries, to collect damages, you will need to retain an attorney who specializes in commercial truck accidents. The attorney’s main mission in recovering damages for you will be to prove that negligence was involved.
To prove negligence, the attorney must first show that the defendant (in most cases, the driver) owed the plaintiff a duty to exercise a reasonable degree of care to avoid injury. This is fairly easy to prove since all drivers on the road have a legal duty to provide reasonable care to other drivers, passengers and pedestrians.
It must then be proven that the defendant did not exercise reasonable care. In other words, they breached the duty to provide reasonable care. For example, if a truck driver ran through a red light or a stop sign, this would be considered a breach of reasonable care.
Finally, it must be shown that the defendant’s failure to exercise reasonable care was the cause of the injury. Running through a red light or a stop sign and hitting another vehicle resulting in injuries shows a direct cause of the injury.
If a truck driver is not an independent hauler, then the company they work for may also be held responsible for the accident if it can be proven they played a role in the driver’s negligence.
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