In this episode of #PersonalInjury101: Trucking Collisions, Partner Shaun Callahan explains why collisions involving semi-trucks aren’t just bigger, they’re fundamentally different.
With more on the line, more complex evidence, and a different legal approach, trucking injury cases operate on another level. Shaun breaks down what sets them apart, what victims need to know early on, and how the right attorney can help navigate the process and pursue the full compensation these cases often require.
How does a collision with a semi truck differ from a collision with a car?
The injuries people sustained in trucking collisions can be a lot more severe than the injuries you might see in a car versus car collision. These trucks can weigh up to 80,000 pounds, whereas a typical car weighs about 4,000 pounds. And if you think back to physics class in high school, that disparity in size and weight means that the people in the car are going to be subjected to extreme forces upon impact because those trucks are so big, so heavy, and so dangerous.
When driven negligently, there is a heightened duty for the drivers of big trucks. It's important to recognize that semi truck drivers are professional drivers, not just anyone can get in a semi truck and drive it. You have to undergo specialized training, both on the road and in the classroom, to develop the skills and knowledge to operate these vehicles.
And once you are done with that training, you must follow the regulations set by the federal and state governments that have been put into place for the safety of everyone on the roadway. In almost every case, we see that the training has not been done correctly and that the trucking company or driver have failed to follow the rules and regulations.
It's those failures and disregard for the rules that leads to very preventable crashes and injuries or deaths on our roads. And then there is the practical difference between a typical car crash and that goes back to the sinister motives of greed and money. The stakes are very high for these companies, and if they and their drivers cause too many crashes, injuries or deaths, they won't be in business very long.
Now, the logical thing to do would be to work hard and invest in preventing these crashes. But what we often see is the exact opposite, that these companies do everything they can to cover up what happened and skirt the regulations. And so what you find is what we oftentimes see across society, that these companies and their insurances are willing to spend obscene amounts of money fighting against the people that they and their drivers injured.
It's a true David versus Goliath story. And the only way for normal folks to even the playing field is to get an experienced trucking attorney on their side.
What do you wish people knew about truck crashes?
The answer to this is sad to me, and that is that 100% of these crashes could be prevented. And the reason we still have innocent people dying or being horribly injured on our roads boils down to greed or laziness. When you see the impact that these crashes have on people, families and our community, it's hard not to get angry.
Operating an 80,000 pound truck on a public road isn't something to be taken lightly, and we should expect our professional drivers to uphold the standards of their profession. Every trucking case that I have handled has involved greed or laziness. Sometimes it's that a company turned a blind eye to an unqualified or unsafe driver. Once, it was a company that employed a medical examiner who ignored positive drug results for a drug screening that should have disqualified the driver.
Other times, it's that the company and driver have falsified the log to let the driver exceed the limit on hours of service, which puts tired drivers on the road. One time it was a truck driver not slowing down for a narrow bridge. All of these actions have consequences. And when you are operating such a big, heavy vehicle, these consequences are oftentimes deadly.
It's a matter of fairness to right now, big companies that we all shop with or see delivering packages every day are spending obscene amounts of money to try and change the laws so that they don't have to follow the rules that other smaller trucking companies have to follow. And they're doing this out of greed because unsafe, unregulated truck drivers are willing to cut corners that a safe, professional truck driver won't do.
So if these regulations are cut, the good truck drivers who are doing things the right way end up getting punished and overlooked in favor of these dangerous but cheaper truckers. If you ask a CDL driving school instructor, they'll tell you that behind every regulation that we have for our trucking companies is a family or loved one who is severely hurt or killed by the action we are trying to prevent.
What can a good trucking injury attorney do for me?
Well, the short answer is that if you are not a personal injury attorney that devotes themselves to trucking cases, it's just about impossible to get anywhere and get any measure of justice. It would be like asking a person with no prior experience as a pilot to fly an airplane. These are complicated and hard fought cases that often last years, with hundreds of steps involved on the journey to justice along the way.
A good trucking attorney is going to act quickly to preserve vital evidence before it is changed, hidden or destroyed. The attorney will know all the rules that professional truck drivers have to follow, including the CDL manual, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, and be familiar with industry and company safety standards, and will check to see whether those rules have been followed.
For example, we will check on whether the truck driver was even qualified to drive. Sometimes they aren't. Whether the trucking company failed to do what it was supposed to do, and whether there were violations that led to this collision and contributed to its severity. And then from there, the attorney will engross themselves in your case to fully understand the issues down to the minutia.
Oftentimes, we have to study a subject in order to understand experts who may have been working in that area for decades. So, for example, in a recent case, we had to learn the science behind digital videos and photography, including lens distortion, the types of frames involved in a video, and camera timing. The issue is different in each and every case, but invariably there is always something that needs diving into.
One of the things I love about this job is that you never stop learning, and a good trucking attorney will do exactly that. Always be curious and never stop learning.
What does a trucking company do after a crash?
So while you or your loved one is on the way to the hospital or being extricated from the car, the trucking company is in gear too. I'm going to address what they should do and what they actually do. What they should do is immediately have a supervisor come to the scene and secure the truck and data recorders as evidence in the crash.
In most cases, the driver should be drug tested and interviewed about what occurred. The company should also cooperate fully with law enforcement. Sometimes this happens, but oftentimes what happens is much more nefarious. Too often, what actually happens is the company or their insurance company immediately hires an expert to come to the scene. The truck driver is whisked away from the scene, invariably not drug tested, which, by the way, is a sign that they were likely under the influence of an illicit substance or one banned by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
Sometimes we see that video footage has been corrupted, altered or not preserved, and then some companies will turn on the truck and drive it a short distance. This is especially nefarious because doing so can overwrite the data recorders on the truck. The difficult thing is, all of this is done in those first 24 hours, and we have seen them all done.
What things need to be secured right away if I am involved in a trucking collision?
It's incredibly important in trucking cases that a preservation letter gets delivered to the truck owner and the truck operator. Many times these are two different people, and potentially to the company who loaded the truck and the company who hired the truck to haul the load. This letter is critical to your case, as it formally requests that these businesses preserve all of the evidence from the time of the collision.
Most people don't realize there are a lot of documents that have to be kept in order for a truck to be on the road, like driving logs and bills of lading. If you don't request preservation of that evidence, sometimes it won't be preserved, even though it should be. In my experience, it's often very clear that the truck drivers are at fault, but they will still deny responsibility for the collision.
They will still claim that you were at fault, even though there's no evidence to support that claim. For these reasons, you should hire a trucking attorney immediately after a collision. A good trucking attorney will handle all of this for you while keeping you informed the entire time. The amount of work that is required to ensure that you get the recovery that you deserve, frankly, is massive, and it's just not feasible for a person who doesn't specialize in this area of the law to be able to effectively advocate for themselves.
The bottom line is that an attorney likely will put you in a better financial position than you could on your own.
What kind of damages can I claim in a personal injury case involving a negligent trucker?
After you've been in a trucking collision. There are several claims you can make. One of these claims is a bottle injury claim. It's important to understand that these claims can be settled at different times. You can claim for any injury sustained in the accident, including physical injuries, emotional distress, loss, wages and medical bills. But the key is that the injury or the loss must be approximately caused by the incident in question.
If the harm or the damages are too attenuated from the injury, it may not be foreseeable and the negligent trucking company may not have to pay for it. There are two kinds of damages that you can claim special damages and general damages.
Special damages are damages that can actually be calculated based on what things cost or economic losses that you sustained. These damages include past and future costs for things like medical bills, lost wages, and out-of-pocket expenses like household services and medications.
General damages are damages that do not have a set monetary cost. These damages include things like your injuries themselves, both emotional and physical pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, and any disability, past or present, that you suffer as a result of your injuries.
In addition to your personal injury claim, you will most likely have a property damage claim if your car is totaled. You should be paid for the actual cash value of your vehicle at the time it was totaled. You should also be put in a rental car or paid for the days that you do not have a car in the aftermath.
This is called loss of use. If your car is not totaled, it should be repaired. Once your car is repaired, it will likely have lost some value due to the damages it sustained. Therefore, you can make a diminished value claim. These kinds of claims are really important to folks in the immediate aftermath of a collision with a semi truck, because these collisions usually leave the car in an undeniable condition.
How does the process of claiming damages work out?
I always explain to my clients that there are two parts of a trucking injury case. The first part is you getting better and billing first party insurance. This means you focus on healing and deal with your own insurance company in the interim. All the while, your attorney should be gathering evidence for what is known as a third party claim.
The second part of the case is that third party claim. This is where we hold the person in businesses that cause the collision responsible for their actions. It's obvious that the trucking companies and their employees should be held responsible for the collisions they've caused, but they really just don't take that responsibility. There are a variety of reasons why truckers get into these collisions, including distracted driving, poor driver training, trucker fatigue, negligent truck maintenance, negligent hiring and supervision on the part of the trucking company, speeding, mechanical failure, inclement conditions, and failure to adjust for them the sheer size of trucks, trucker air, trucker neglect, trucker oversight, and mechanical failure.
Because there are so many different potential reasons the collision occurred. It is important that you hire an experienced trucking injury attorney like me to figure out which of these causes accounts for the wreck at the end of the day. You don't know what was going on with the truck driver that caused the wreck, but an attorney can find that out for you.
Was the truck driver driving too fast? Following too close? Watching the video on their phone. These are all questions that will need to be answered in order for you to get the recovery you deserve.
What are some other tips you have for clients that have been injured in a trucking collision?
One thing I always tell my clients who have been injured in trucking collisions. Never sell yourself short with a trucking company. These trucking companies have a ton of insurance. For 2023, the minimum coverage the trucking company was required to carry was $750,000, plus, personal injury. Attorneys are pushing hard to raise those insurance limits. The Institute for Safer Trucking released its statistics for 2021, which showed that 2021 had the highest number of trucking collision related deaths in the last 40 years.
These collisions are becoming more common and more deadly, and we have to hold the trucking companies and insurance carriers they use to a higher standard.
What are some common causes of trucking negligence that can lead to injury?
I see a lot of cases where truckers are either fatigued or impaired while driving, and then cause collisions. Impairment in this case doesn't necessarily mean the trucker is abusing illicit drugs or drinking alcohol. There are certain prescriptions that aren't safe to take while operating a truck, but the truck drivers take them anyway and are impaired on the job as a result.
Surprisingly, I've also seen a lot of cases where it turns out that truck drivers are not properly certified and thus are not supposed to be driving semi trucks in the first place. Truckers are required to have a medical certification in order to drive, and I'd say about half the time in these cases, these truckers are either impaired and shouldn't be on the road, or they're lying to their doctors to get prescriptions for drugs they shouldn't be on.
That's not to say we don't see a lot of cases where truckers are impaired due to illegal drug use. It's a tough industry, and these drivers need to stay up for long periods of time. Some of them use illegal drugs to stay awake.
Do I need an attorney to file a personal injury claim?
While it is possible to file a personal injury claim on your own. It is highly recommended that you work with an experienced personal injury attorney. An attorney can help you navigate the legal process, gather evidence, negotiate with insurance companies, and represent you in court if necessary. GLP Attorneys has a practice group dedicated solely to making sure that its attorneys are well versed in the laws that govern truck operators and their owners.
GLP Attorneys truck accident injury attorneys have resolved a considerable number of trucking accident injury cases since our firm's founding in 1986. If you have been involved in a trucking accent, call (800) 273-5005 or email our attorneys at to schedule a free lawyer consultation.
Why did you become a truck accident attorney?
I, unfortunately, had a personal experience with a truck accident, and that has stuck with me and is really the reason I became a personal injury attorney. So when I was 17, I took the family minivan to the grocery store to get a gallon of milk. I had my little brother with me, and while we were at the grocery store for an hour, we came back out.
The battery was dead and our car wouldn't start. It was about 96 degrees outside. It was an early September day, and so I did what I would always do if I had an issue like that. I called my grandparents. My grandma and my grandpa were in downtown Seattle at a doctor's appointment. They left immediately to come up and help us jump our car, but they never made it.
Somewhere on northbound I-5 between Seattle and Edmonds, they were rear ended by a Canadian truck driver towing a trailer that hadn't been properly hooked up to his truck. It was a horrific crash. The truck driver was going about 75 miles an hour when he hit their little Subaru Forester, and in the aftermath, they spent a combined 100 days in Harborview Medical Center.
That crash changed my grandparents life and changed my family's life, and the only saving grace that they had is they had a really good attorney on their side that was able to help them get justice. But what I realized through that process is that we as attorneys are limited to what we can do. We can do the best job that we can, but we can never truly put people's lives back together.
So one thing that I always carry with me when I represent my clients is that knowledge that I need to do the best that I can do, just to even start to put my clients back where they should be.
Contact an Experienced Trucking Injury Attorney
If you or someone you know has been involved in a trucking accident, it is recommended to speak to a personal injury lawyer.
GLP Attorneys has decades of experience supporting individuals involved in trucking accidents and has secured six and seven-figure settlements for their clients.
Please call us at (800) 273- 5005 to contact our personal injury attorneys for a free consultation so we can assist you with your personal injury case.
