One of the most common types of car accidents people find themselves in is a rear-end collision. This occurs when another vehicle strikes the back of your automobile. When the other vehicle is a sedan, the damage may not be too severe, but when it involves a large truck, you could have serious damages and injuries on your hands. You could be looking at astronomical medical bills, lost wages, hefty vehicle repairs and all sorts of other expenses. From the beginning, you need to take rear-end truck accidents seriously and hire the best attorney in your area for the job.
What Is the Main Cause of Rear-End Truck Collisions?
Thousands of truck accidents happen every year and a significant portion of these entail involve rear-end collisions. The reason why they are so dangerous is due to the fact large trucks can be up to 40 times heavier than your standard passenger vehicle. The weight alone is enough to cause serious injuries, but there are also other factors, such as stopping distance, that come into play. To come to a complete stop while traveling at 65 miles per hour, a large truck requires the distance of two football fields. The distance might be even longer if the road is wet, icy or flooded. You never want to cut ahead of a big rig. When you cut it off, you drastically reduce the distance the trucker has, and you increase your risk of being involved in a terrible accident.
Are Rear-End Collisions Always the Trucker’s Fault?
When it comes to these types of collisions, a rear-end truck accident attorney will always set out to determine who is at fault. For rear-end collisions, fault is almost always on the vehicle hitting the other car from the rear. Therefore, if a passenger car strikes an 18-wheeler from behind, the passenger car driver is usually at fault, but not always. You never want to ignore the trucking company or its driver being responsible.
Companies have to ensure trucks are safe for the road. They need to undergo routine maintenance and go through repairs when necessary. An attorney will be able to acquire the necessary records to determine the last time the truck underwent these maintenance and repairs. However, when you deal with the company itself, you are dealing with a multi-million-dollar organization that will fight ferociously to pay out as little as possible.
You also do not want to ignore the possibility that the truck was owned by several transportation companies. For example, it is possible for there to be a company responsible for hauling the load and another that owns the equipment and employs the driver. A rear-end truck collision can become complicated quickly, which is why you need to get an attorney in your corner sooner rather than later.
What Are the Types of Settlements You Can Get?
There are two types of damages you can acquire in any kind of auto collision settlement. You can fight for economic damages, which are expenses with a specific monetary value. These include medical bills, damages to your vehicle, the cost of any future attendant care and all lost income. Then you have non-economic damages, which are less easy to define. This includes items like pain and suffering, scarring and disability.
Your settlement could range anywhere between a few thousand to several million dollars. Our team once successfully won a case worth 2.75 million dollars, where an overloaded log truck injured several people in a crash. We tried another case that resulted in a $3.5 million verdict when a truck driver inadvertently killed a man. At the time of the trial, it was the largest personal injury verdict that had ever been awarded by a jury from Tuscaloosa County.
Tired truckers lose coordination, concentration, and control. This can result in them falling asleep behind the wheel. In just a few moments, the lives of other motorists can be changed forever. This explains why fatigue is one of the main causes of trucking hazards.
Why Should You Obtain Experienced Legal Counsel?
Even if you have auto insurance, the amount you receive will likely not cover all of your expenses. The injuries from a truck wreck can follow you for the rest of your life, and you deserve to receive compensation that will allow you to live as normal a life as possible. Trucking companies have teams of lawyers at their disposal to protect their interests. It may seem daunting at first, especially if you have the other driver’s insurance company’s adjuster contacting you in the hospital trying to get you to settle out of court.
You deserve to have experienced legal counsel in your corner. You want to have someone who understands the complexities of Alabama law and is not intimidated by seeing a team of attorneys in the courtroom. This is when experienced attorneys like ones at Prince Glover Hayes can make a difference in the outcome of your case. We encourage all victims of truck wrecks to contact an experienced rear-end truck accident lawyer right away so that our team can get started on your case. In order to have one less thing to worry about, please consider saving our contact information in your phone or in the car documents you keep in your glove compartment.
Image Credits:
Shutterstock/Olivier Le Queinec
Shutterstock/cla78
Shutterstock/Kryuchka Yaroslav