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(214) 200-4878
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NO FEES UNLESS WE WIN
Board Certified
Large commercial vehicles pose a danger to others on the highway, and their safe operation requires a driver with specialized training who pays meticulous attention to the rules of the road. If you were recently involved in a commercial vehicle accident and suffered a serious injury it’s your right to legal representation, you should call attorney Aaron Herbert who will fight for your compensation.
But in business, time equals money, and commercial vehicle drivers are often made to adhere to tight schedules and drive long hours.
If you or a loved one has become the victim of a commercial vehicle collision, speak with our commercial vehicle accident attorneys immediately to get the legal help you need to recover from the serious damages.
To get started, contact us today.
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If you are involved in an accident with a commercial vehicle, you may be so seriously injured that you are unable to do anything but wait for an ambulance.
But if you are physically able to do so, it is helpful to know what to do in the minutes, hours, and days immediately following the accident:
If you’ve been injured by a commercial vehicle, it may not be immediately apparent who the liable party is.
A Texas Board Certified Personal Injury Attorney will be able to call upon experts such as accident reconstruction specialists, automotive and civil engineers, and traffic safety experts to assist in the investigation of the accident, identify liable parties, and provide evidence in support of your case.
The first step in filing a commercial vehicle crash claim is gathering evidence of your accident and injuries.
The more information you can collect about your commercial vehicle accident, the easier it will be for your attorney to make sense of your case and build a strong legal strategy to fight for compensation.
Collecting information from the scene such as the name of the commercial vehicle company and photographs of property damages can help your claim later. If you need assistance gathering evidence and information, a commercial vehicle accident lawyer can help.
Gathering information is also necessary before you file an insurance claim.
The insurance company you call will ask questions about your accident, such as where you were when it happened, the date and time, a description of the vehicles involved, and the names of all drivers.
Also, collect information such as the commercial vehicle driver’s Department of Transportation and permit numbers.
Giving as much information as possible to the insurance company could help you resolve your claim quickly and efficiently.
Once you have collected the most important information about your accident, the next step toward filing a claim is contacting Aaron A. Herbert, P.C.
Our commercial vehicle accident lawyers can help you with all the subsequent steps involved in bringing a claim if we believe you have a case.
This can include preserving evidence, retrieving the commercial vehicle’s black box, speaking with witnesses, hiring experts, filing your claim, and negotiating with insurance claims adjusters in the pursuit of maximum recovery.
Texas has strict and specific time limits for filing personal injury and auto accident claims. This time limit is two years from the date of the accident in most cases.
If you wish to bring a commercial vehicle accident claim in Texas, you or your lawyer must file the claim paperwork within two years of the date of the accident.
If you did not discover your injuries until a date after your accident, the clock will not begin until the date of discovery.
The deadline for filing a wrongful death claim is two years from the date of your loved one’s passing.
If you are filing an insurance claim, your deadline is typically much shorter. Most insurance companies require claimants to report auto accidents as soon as possible – within 24 to 72 hours.
Waiting too long to notify your auto insurance company or the commercial vehicle driver’s insurer of your damages could give the provider grounds to deny your claim.
If you have any questions about your particular deadline for filing after a harmful commercial vehicle wreck in Texas, speak to our commercial vehicle accident attorneys.
Yes, you should file a police report after a commercial vehicle accident in Texas. Almost all commercial vehicle accidents fulfill Texas’ requirements for reporting a car accident to the police: more than $1,000 in property damages, personal injuries, or deaths.
Most commercial vehicle accidents are serious enough to warrant a phone call to the police from the scene. After you call the police and wait for them to arrive, tell your story to the reporting law enforcement officer.
Telling your side of what happened could help you hold the commercial vehicle company liable later.
The responding police officer will most likely fill out and file Crash Report 3 (CR-3), an official police report summarizing your accident and giving the officer’s opinion on fault. If the officer fills out a police report, get the number of the report for future use.
If the officer tells you to fill out Crash Report 2 (CR-2) instead, of the Blue Form, you will need to download this form, fill it out yourself and send it to the Texas Department of Transportation (DOT).
You will only need to submit a Blue Form if the police officer does not send a CR-3 to the DOT.
Your commercial vehicle accident lawyers will assist you in making a claim to recover compensation for both your economic damages and your non-economic damages, also called “general damages,” that relate to your quality of life.
Economic damages, which can be quantified by producing bills, receipts, and employment records may include:
Potential non-economic damages your attorney may demand include:
The number one cause of commercial vehicle accidents is driver negligence, which is often due to driver distraction or impairment, but which sometimes occurs as a result of the commercial vehicle company failing to properly train its commercial vehicle drivers or pushing drivers to drive faster or work longer hours than the law allows in order meeting a deadline.
Commercial vehicle owners may also be responsible for a vehicle being overloaded or improperly loaded, with cargo inadequately secured.
Owners or maintenance companies who fail to inspect, maintain, and repair their commercial vehicles may be held liable for your damages, as may a manufacturer of a commercial vehicle or one of its parts that contained a defect that caused the crash.
If the accident was caused by an unsafe road condition, the government agency or contractor that caused the problem could be found liable.
These are some types of accidents that commonly occur involving large commercial vehicle:
Semi-trucks, also known as tractor-trailers, big rigs, or 18-wheelers, consist of a cab that pulls a trailer, which carries the truck’s cargo.
Weighing as much as 80,000 when fully loaded, trucks are awkward to handle, slow to stop, difficult to turn, prone to jackknifing and rolling over, and have large blind spots.
Their weight can do catastrophic damage to an ordinary passenger vehicle and its passengers—not to mention motorcycle riders, pedestrians, and bicyclists—if an accident occurs.
These are the types of trucks most likely to be engaged in interstate commerce and thus subject to federal regulations.
The federal government and the State of Texas regulate the trucking business with an eye to protecting the lives and health of the rest of us when we must share the road with these giants, including:
Similar to semi-trucks, tankers consist of two parts—a cab and a tank holding liquid cargo—and consequently have the same accident risk factors as a regular semi, but with some additional dangers.
Tankers must be loaded properly to avoid the liquid sloshing inside the tank, which causes the weight to shift, creating instability, which could cause the driver to lose control or the truck to roll over.
Tanker trucks often carry hazardous and sometimes flammable liquids, so an accident could cause a hazmat spill or a fire, which could cause people over a wide area to become ill, in addition to any damage it might do by colliding with or rolling over onto another vehicle.
Transporting hazardous materials requires that the driver have additional training and pass an examination to obtain a Hazmat Endorsement.
Courier services, such as FedEx, UPS, DHL, and others deliver packages to homes and businesses. Their fleets often include semi-trucks moving across state lines as well as large and small local area delivery vans.
They are generally subject to government regulations.
Trucks making local deliveries make frequent stops and turns, often in areas frequented by smaller vehicles and pedestrians, who are placed in danger, due to the truck’s large blind spots, large size, and lack of easy maneuverability.
Sanitation trucks (garbage trucks) also operate in residential areas. Not only are they large, heavy vehicles that back up and turn around often, but they are usually equipped with noisy and dangerous robotics, requiring the close attention of the operator, who may be less likely to see a pedestrian or child in the vicinity and may cause a serious accident.
These large powerful trucks are typically used in construction. They are heavy and unwieldy, with large blind spots. Used to deposit materials at a worksite, they back up frequently and drop their load behind them.
They can back up and strike a person in the back of the truck, or cause an injury to a bystander in the dumping process.
Flatbed trucks carry their cargo on a flat, open platform behind the cab. They are often used for transporting materials and heavy equipment to a construction site.
Aside from the typical dangers of all large trucks, flatbeds pose an additional danger if the cargo is not fastened down properly, allowing it to fall from the truck onto another vehicle, pedestrian, or worker.
These are some common causes of commercial vehicle accidents that can often be attributed to the negligence of a driver, owner, or some other party:
Truck crashes often result in catastrophic injuries and death. Some of the more common injuries suffered by commercial vehicle accident victims include:
Because commercial vehicle accidents are often difficult and complex relative to other highway accidents, they should be handled only by an experienced commercial vehicle accident attorney.
In addition to the factors that come into play in any motor vehicle accident—driver impairment, speed, and so forth—there are particular matters specific to commercial vehicles, including:
When you have been seriously injured in an accident or have lost a family member in a fatal crash involving a large commercial vehicle, bringing a Board Certified Personal Injury Attorney on board at the earliest stage can make an enormous difference in the outcome of your case.
Commercial vehicle companies often have mitigation teams in place, ready to respond at a moment’s notice to protect the company’s financial interests by looking for any reason to avoid taking responsibility for an accident, which may mean obscuring evidence or attempting to place the blame on the injured party, so it is important to get your attorney’s investigative started working for you while the evidence is still available.
Having a team of experts protecting your rights from the very beginning will make it more likely that you will receive full and adequate compensation for all of your economic and non-economic damages.
Especially in catastrophic injury cases, your future life and that of your family will depend on your being able to receive enough money to pick up the pieces of your life and move forward with the least amount of hardship.
For the expert legal counsel that can make this happen, call Aaron A. Herbert, P.C. to arrange a free consultation. Aaron is a Board Certified Trial Attorney who has experience representing victims of commercial vehicle accident injury lawsuits.
Insurance companies know he is willing to take a case to court if an appropriate settlement offer is not forthcoming, and are therefore often more willing to offer a fair settlement outside of court.
Aaron is a member of the prestigious Million Dollar Advocates Forum and has the highest possible AVVO rating—10 /10.
We are a client-focused, results-oriented law firm, where your interests always come first. Protect your legal right to monetary compensation by contacting us today.