D'Amore Personal Injury Law, LLC
Serious Injury Lawyers Proudly Serving
Baltimore, Annapolis, & Washington, D.C.
Truck & Bus Accidents
Our major accident attorneys will fight to win your case.
Baltimore Truck & Bus Accident Lawyers
Commercial truck and bus accidents involve a different set of challenges and a different group of players than accidents only involving cars. Trucks and Buses are much larger and immensely heavier than passenger cars. They have less maneuverability, require longer stopping distances, and have bigger blind spots than passenger cars. It takes well trained, highly skilled, and extremely careful professionals to operate commercial trucks and buses on our roadways.
Furthermore, the insurance companies that work with large commercial trucks and buses are extremely well versed in all manner of avoiding liability for the negligent acts perpetrated by commercial truck and bus drivers.
If you or a loved one has been hurt or killed in an accident involving a truck or bus, you need attorneys with a proven track record of success against these formidable adversaries. Without the right lawyers, you risk falling short of the total compensation you need and deserve.
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Collecting Evidence After a Truck Accident
Accident attorneys are accustomed to collecting evidence after a crash, including witness statements, photographs of the vehicles involved, police reports, and more. However, when a commercial truck or bus is involved, there is a different set of evidence that must be collected. Evidence in a commercial truck or bus accident can be divided into three distinct categories:
- DRIVER EVIDENCE:
This includes the driver’s qualifications file, the driver’s training file, the hours of service documentation, the driver inspection records, and post-collision drug and alcohol screening.
- VEHICLE EVIDENCE:
This includes downloads of the on-board systems, maintenance history documentation, inspection history, and data GPS tracking systems.
- LOAD & CARGO EVIDENCE:
This includes weight tickets, trip envelopes, dispatch instructions, delivery documents, and bills of lading.
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Their daughter was in an accident
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— Michele & Stacy D.
Truck Rules & Regulations
While all vehicles operated on the roadways and highways are bound by the “rules of the road,” such as speed, headlight use, etc., commercial trucks and buses are subject to additional and far reaching regulation. Those regulations exist on both the Federal and State levels.
At the Federal level, rules are established by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration- an agency of the United States Department of Transportation.
For the State of Maryland, the State Highway Administration, a division of the Department of Transportation, establishes trucking rules. The District of Columbia Department of Transportation serves this same function in Washington, D.C.. Commercial trucks are required to comply with the rules and regulations established by these applicable agencies and the failure to do so can be the basis for a claim of negligence even where the commercial vehicle operator has otherwise complied with the more universal traffic regulations applicable to all vehicles.
Given the complexity of these regulations, it is critical to have an experienced, knowledgeable attorney on your side to protect your rights, and to get you the maximum recovery available.
Learn more about what to do after a car accident in our FREE guide.
Types of Truck Accidents
ROLLOVER ACCIDENTS:
These typically occur due to fast speeds, steep inclines or steep declines, tripping on a curb or another object on the road, taking a curve too fast or trying to correct a trailer that has drifted off the road. Many rollover accidents are single vehicle accidents.
HEAD-ON COLLISIONS:
Oftentimes these accidents are caused by driver fatigue. The truck or bus collides with traffic in the opposite direction. Head-on collisions generate tremendous forces that usually cause deaths and/or catastrophic injuries.
REAR-END COLLISIONS:
Although these create less force than head-on collisions, they can still cause death and serious injury. When either a bus or truck driver fails to realize how much distance is needed to stop, the risk of a rear-end collision increases. The stopping distance for an 80,000 pound truck that is driving at 60 mph is approximately 420 feet (140 yards), which is longer than the length of a football field.
UNDERRIDE ACCIDENT:
One of the most dangerous and fatal types of truck accidents happens when a smaller vehicle hits the back of a truck that is near the same level as the top of the vehicle, causing the car to go underneath the rear trailer. Similarly, this type of accident occurs when a large truck (tractor trailer) comes into contact with a smaller vehicle and the smaller vehicle is pulled beneath the trailer. These types of catastrophic accidents can often be avoided through the use of an underride guard.
In fact the U.S. Department of Transportation has required that all trailers manufactured since 1998 be equipped with underride guards. Even for those trailers that aren’t mandated to have them, underride guards are essential equipment and could well mean the difference between life and death for the drivers and passengers of motor vehicles involved in these types of collisions with tractor trailers. An experienced attorney will have access to trucking safety experts, who can secure the appropriate evidence and prepare the proper case to best ensure that you receive fair compensation and total justice for your injuries.
Causes of Truck Accidents
There are thousands of commercial trucks and buses navigating our roadways every day. Unfortunately, some will be involved in serious accidents. Truck and Bus accidents result from a variety of factors. Some of the more common causes are:
- Inadequate driver training
- Driver fatigue
- Driver not paying attention
- Driver disobeying traffic signs and signals
- Speeding
- Tailgating
- Insufficient vehicle maintenance
- Driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol
- Harsh weather or poor road conditions
- Texting or other cell phone use
F.A.Q.
ARE CAR ACCIDENTS AND TRUCK ACCIDENTS THE SAME?
No. There are many distinctions between car accidents and trucking accidents. Many of those distinctions result from additional rules and regulations that apply to commercial trucks and that do not apply to passenger vehicles.
Truck accidents are complex. They require fast action and a solid understanding of how trucking insurance companies operate. Truck accidents must not be handled in the same way as car accidents. If they are, you will lose.
WHAT DOES “CONTRIBUTORY NEGLIGENCE” MEAN WHEN DETERMINING WHO IS LIABLE FOR A TRAFFIC ACCIDENT?
Contributory negligence means that if you are found to be partially at fault for your accident, even if minimally so, you will be barred from recovering monies from other at fault parties. This is a legal doctrine that is exceedingly harsh to claimants and serves as another reason why you should never speak with an insurance company prior to speaking with an attorney.
WHEN SHOULD I CONTACT AN ATTORNEY AFTER AN ACCIDENT?
You should contact an attorney immediately after an accident. Why? Because you only have a limited amount of time to file a claim, and time is of the essence in an accident case. Valuable evidence can be lost or destroyed with the passage of time.
Moreover, your attorney will know what evidence to look for, and how to capture it – including skid marks or other relevant details. Therefore, having your lawyer help you obtain and preserve evidence will give you an advantage when presenting that proof to an insurance adjuster.
Finally, having a lawyer available to help you immediately will avoid the possibility of an insurance adjuster obtaining a statement or other admission from you at the scene. You want to be sure that your side of the story is not tainted by slanted questions from an insurance adjuster.
WHAT DOES IT COST TO HIRE THE BEST MOTORCYCLE ACCIDENT LAWYER?
Nothing.
There is no cost to you unless we win. If the case is successfully resolved, the costs of the lawsuit are repaid from the recovery.
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