A truck accident can turn your life upside down. Given the size of these rigs, they leave devastation in their wake when errantly driven, often leaving unsuspecting victims with catastrophic injuries, including traumatic brain injuries and spinal cord injuries.
If you’ve been involved in one of these accidents, then you know that reality all too well. And as you try to find a way to cope with your physical injuries, you also have to struggle to deal with the emotional and psychological toll taken on you as well as the financial damage that’s been caused. While you can pursue a personal injury lawsuit in hopes of finding accountability and recovering compensation, a truck accident case is handled differently from a regular car accident.
Tips for building your truck accident personal injury case
There are some aspects of your truck accident case that are going to be similar to a car accident personal injury case. You’ll want to obtain a police report, talk to witnesses, and track your economic and non-economic damages, but there are some extra steps that you’ll want to take. This includes:
- Gaining access to trucking logs: Truckers are bound by hours-of-service regulations, which limit the amount of hours that they can drive in a given timeframe. If they’ve violated those hours, then you’ll be in a stronger position to secure the robust recovery you want. The trucker’s logs should give you a clearer sense of how much driving they had done leading up to your wreck.
- Subpoenaing maintenance records: When you pursue a truck accident personal injury lawsuit, you want to be able to hold both the trucker and their employer liable. To reach the truck company, though, you’re going to have to show that the trucker was operating within the scope of their employment at the time of the accident or that the truck company was otherwise negligent. One way to do this is to get your hands on maintenance records to show that the truck involved in your accident was improperly repaired when needed.
- Conducting an accident reconstruction: Although you might request one of these in a car accident, it might be even more important in a truck accident case. This is especially true if your crash involved multiple vehicles. Here, an expert will assess the evidence from a scientific perspective to reach a determination as to how the wreck occurred. The expert will also allocate fault amongst the parties, which can give you strong evidence to argue your case in court.
While these are important steps to take in your truck accident personal injury case, they are just a small part of your claim. There are several other arguments that you might want to make, and there are several logistical and evidentiary challenges that you might face. So, before entering the legal arena, make sure you have a full understanding of the process and how to zealously advocate for what you deserve.
Don’t lose out in your truck accident personal injury case
There’s a lot at stake in your personal injury case. A successful claim could help you offset your medical expenses and lost wages while also compensating you for the damage that’s been caused to your life. But if you go into your case unprepared or ill-equipped to argue your claim, then you put your recovery, your financial stability, and your future at risk.
That’s why if you’re interested in building a strong personal injury case, then you need to be prepared to put in the work necessary to aggressively advocate for your position. The good news is that you don’t have to navigate the process on your own, so think about who you can turn to for support in your time of need.
