Elkhart, IN Truck Accident Lawyer

Collisions on the road are always frightening, but accidents with trucks and similarly huge vehicles are especially terrifying. Drivers are often catastrophically injured. An attorney can assist you in pursuing legal action against those responsible.

Truck accidents happen in numerous different ways. Determining exactly how your accident happened is the first step toward getting fair compensation for your injuries. You might have been injured in a rollover accident, jackknife accident, or a wide-turn collision. Evidence to support your claims may include, but is not limited to, security camera footage, witness testimony, and truck company business records and logs. The evidence might help us determine who should be held responsible. Truckers, truck companies, and various other parties might be to blame or share blame. Common causational factors in truck collisions include distracted or tired truckers, improperly loaded cargo, and speed.

Speak to our truck accident attorneys for an initial, private, free case evaluation when you call Wruck Paupore at (219) 322-1166.

Different Ways Truck Accidents May Happen Around Elkhart, IN

Understanding how an accident occurred can help injured plaintiffs determine who should be held responsible. In truck accidents, the immense size and weight of the truck are often major factors in how the crash plays out. Below are a few ways truck accidents commonly happen, although your accident might differ. Speak to an attorney about your accident right away.

Rollover Accidents

Trucks are usually very tall vehicles. They might be hauling equally large trailers full of heavy cargo. Trucks and trailers sometimes roll over on the highway, crushing nearby vehicles. Trucks might topple over far more easily than people realize. A speeding trucker might hit a patch of ice or hydroplane on the road after a storm. This situation often puts the entire truck off balance, and the truck might fall over. This can be an incredibly dangerous accident, and nearby drivers often do not have time to get out of the way.

Jackknife Accidents

A jackknife accident occurs when the truck turns one way and the trailer swerves in the opposite direction. The truck and trailer might form an L-shape on the road. This might not sound like a big deal, but large trucks with long trailers might swerve all over the road, injuring countless other drivers. Many jackknife accidents happen because truckers are driving dangerously fast. When they encounter an obstacle or must hit the brakes suddenly, the truck is moving too fast and is far too heavy to slow down safely. The entire vehicle sort of spins out.

Wide-Turn Crashes

Turning a truck is very different from turning a car. When trucks make right turns, they often have very little room. Truckers often have to swerve out to the left before swinging back to the right to turn safely. This way, a car that might be on the truck’s right will not be squeezed between the truck and the trailer. Unfortunately, right turns do not always go smoothly, and cars get crushed. If the trucker made a right turn without caution, they might be responsible for your injuries and damages.

Evidence Available in Many Elkhart, IN Truck Accident Cases

Proving your claims in court requires evidence. The more evidence we have, the better your outcome will likely be. Evidence can be tricky because it is something of a double-edged sword. Evidence might look like anything or come from anywhere, making it a very broad concept. However, the evidence must be relevant to your case and meet strict evidentiary standards to be admissible in court. In this way, good evidence can be very hard to obtain.

Our truck accident attorneys can begin our search for evidence at the location where the truck accident happened. Nowadays, cameras are everywhere, even in isolated areas along. Traffic cameras operated by the state or local authorities might record the crash. Private security cameras might have recorded the crash if your accident happened near a home or business. Video evidence can be extremely powerful, and we might need to move quickly to obtain this evidence before it is deleted.

Many trucks are equipped with “black box” recording devices. These devices record all kinds of data about a particular trip. Data about how fast the truck was moving, how often it stopped, when the trucker hit the brakes, and other details might be recorded. We can demand access to this data from the truck company to see if the trucker was speeding or if they hit the brakes before the crash.

If the accident occurred on a busier road or highway, other drivers might have seen it or even stopped to help. These other drivers might testify as witnesses. A witness’s testimony might be extremely valuable depending on what they saw.

We should also explore records from the trucker and trucking company. Business records might verify who was driving the truck in the accident or whether the driver was properly trained. Driving logs from truckers might show us when they last rested and how long they rested before getting back on the road.

Figuring Out Who is Responsible for a Truck Accident in Elkhart, IN

Another complex element of truck accident cases is determining who should be held accountable. People often blame truck drivers, but their employers and other parties might also be to blame.

Truck drivers often bear the brunt of the blame, and for good reasons. Truck driver negligence is a major factor in many accident cases. The trucker might have fallen asleep at the wheel because they did not stop to rest. They might have been on their phone or distracted by their GPS device when they caused the crash.

Truck companies may also be held responsible. Under the legal theory of respondeat superior, an employer may be held liable for injuries caused by a negligent employee in the normal course of their duties.

Still, other drivers near the accident might share responsibility. Perhaps another speeding driver cut off the trucker, who then swerved into other vehicles. In such a scenario, the trucker and the other driver who cut them off might be held liable.

For a Review of Your Claims to Get Started, Call Our Elkhart, IN Truck Accident Attorneys Today

Speak to our truck accident attorneys for an initial, private, free case evaluation when you call Wruck Paupore at (219) 322-1166.