You are traveling on Kettleman Lane headed to the Woodbridge Golf & Country Club in Lodi when your sedan is T-boned by a large commercial tractor-trailer. The damage is extensive, including catastrophic injuries. The police investigation discovered that the truck operator had been behind the wheel for 24 hours straight with no stops and became extremely fatigued.

Unfortunately, this scenario, and many others like it, are pretty common. Nearly 4,000 people died in accidents involving large commercial trucks in 2015, according to IIHS. Many of these terrible accidents occurred in California since our state leads the country in the percentage of recorded truck accidents, according to Distracted Driving Accidents.

If you or a loved one was involved in an accident with a large commercial truck, contact an experienced Lodi truck accident attorney to discuss your legal options.

Numerous reasons may contribute to a commercial truck colliding with a sedan, SUV, pickup truck, or another vehicle. Some common causes of truck wrecks include:

• Operator fatigue
• Careless or reckless operators
• Intoxicated operators
• Distracted big rig operators
• Inadequate training
• Defective equipment

Depending on the facts of your case, you may be able to pursue claims against multiple defendants, including the truck operator who collided with your sedan, SUV, or pickup truck and their employer.

Other potential defendants include:

• The safety director for the trucking company
• A mechanic whose attempts to resolve the problem resulted in the collision
• Commercial vehicle inspectors
• The other driver’s insurance company
• The manufacturer of the commercial truck

In a truck accident injury case, the injured party bears the burden of establishing liability and financial responsibility on the truck driver and their employer. To establish liability, your lawyer must be able to show that the truck driver and/or other related defendants owed a duty of care to you and other drivers to exercise reasonable care under the circumstances and that the defendant(s) breached that duty, proximately causing your physical, mental, and emotional harm.

The following YouTube video explains how trucking accident cases differ from car accident cases.

Severe commercial truck accidents are not just caused by operator negligence. Many accidents are caused by improper commercial truck maintenance, causing it to malfunction while on a busy road or highway. This is often caused by trucking companies that defer routine maintenance for as long as possible to maximize profits. This is extremely risky since some commercial trucks that have been on the road for weeks or months with little to no maintenance are like time bombs waiting to wreak havoc on the roads.

There are state and federal regulations in place that require trucking companies to routinely inspect and maintain their trucks. Still, many trucking companies throw caution to the wind and neglect to maintain their fleet of vehicles until a terrible accident occurs.

Some of the commercial truck parts that often malfunction, causing serious accidents include:

• Tires, including the continued use to retread
• Brake systems
• Hydraulic systems
• Steering components

If one or more of these systems and component parts fail, you may be able to seek financial restitution against the trucking company, in addition to the truck operator.

Establishing a case requires an investigation of your accident as soon as possible. This is critically important to ensure evidence can be collected and preserved. Many types of information can serve as evidence in a truck accident case, including:

• Truck maintenance records;
• Log books that are required to be maintained, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration;
• The commercial truck’s “black box” (a device that records data before, during, and after a collision); and/or the driving speeds of the truck and your vehicle
• Eyewitness statements

A Lodi truck accident lawyer can also retain experts whose experience and knowledge can be helpful in a courtroom to help prove your case. Experts include a former investigator for a state transportation department or a computer expert who can interpret the black box data from the truck.

Fulfilling a lawsuit against a big trucking company can be overwhelming. But rest assured, you are not alone in this fight. In fact, there are numerous examples of people standing up and getting sizable verdicts against large trucking companies that negligently harmed them. Since 2011, there have been at least six truck accident cases where a settlement or verdict resulted in $20 million or more for the injured party, according to the National Law Review.

An example can be found in a jury verdict in favor of a widow whose husband was killed in a commercial truck accident. The jury awarded over $40 million in damages. The victim was hit and killed by a commercial truck driver who ran a stop sign and hit the victim’s pickup truck.

Another example is a case involving the deaths of five college classmates. A commercial tractor-trailer reportedly ran over the top of a Toyota Corolla carrying the five classmates. Multiple wrongful death lawsuits were filed on behalf of the victims, and the trucking company reportedly settled for nearly $80 million.

Our law firm has only handled California’s personal injury and wrongful death cases since 1982. Taking on a large commercial truck company can be pretty intimidating. This is why you need to level the playing field by retaining the services of an experienced injury attorney. Call our legal team today at (209) 227-1931 or (800) 404-5400 for free, friendly advice.

We are members of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum and the National Association of Distinguished Counsel.

See our client reviews on Avvo, Google, and Yelp and our past cases on our Verdicts and Settlements page.

^{Editor’s Note: updated [cha 7.25.23] sb jm bw [cs 1003] Photo by Pixabay}