Truck Accidents: Navigating the Legal System

Kansas City, MOAccidents involving large trucks and tractor-trailers occur every day, and it is rare that an accident involving such massive vehicles does not involve injury. Usually, the injuries sustained are to people in smaller passenger vehicles and they are often serious. After all, a fully loaded semi truck can weigh more than 20 times what some passenger vehicles weigh.

While any accident involving semi trucks can be traumatic itself, for people injured in such accidents navigating the legal system afterwards can be a frustrating and complex experience.

This is because many of the semi-trucks involved in truck accidents drive long distances, so there can be different laws governing the truck depending on the state (or country) it is registered in and the state in which the accident occurred. In the US, trucking companies are governed by both federal and state regulations, including the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations. There may also be international companies involved in a truck accident. For example, there are many trucks on United States roads that are owned or operated from Canada. Therefore, it is important to determine where a lawsuit should be filed and what laws are governing the truck involved in the accident.

Laws regulating the trucking industry also set guidelines for how the trucks are maintained. Semi trucks must be serviced and maintained at regular intervals.

Some trucks involved in accidents have faulty brakes, while others have problems with their turn signals or tires. Job or company pressures mean that some truck drivers do not get as much rest time as they are, by law, required to have. It means that they may be driving longer hours than they are supposed to, with not much sleep. Essentially, this means that there may be some very tired drivers behind the wheels of some tractor-trailers.

There are also a number of parties who could be named as defendants in trucking accident lawsuits. These include the truck's driver and owner/operator, the owner of the trailer, the trucking company, the shipper, the truck's manufacturer, and repair shops responsible for maintaining the truck. Additionally, if poor road conditions played a role in the accident, the parties responsible for maintaining the road could be sued. If the accident was the result of the actions of a different vehicle, for example a car cut-off a tractor-trailer, which resulted in an accident that injured a person in a third vehicle, then a lawsuit may be possible against the driver of the car that caused the accident.

An experienced lawyer can help determine which parties are legally liable in a tractor-trailer accident. The lawyer can also help to ensure that necessary evidence, including maintenance records, is preserved and an investigation into the cause of an accident is carried out. Finally, a lawyer can determine what types of compensation you are eligible for following a truck accident.