Most commercial trucks weigh 20 to 30 times more than cars and are significantly taller. Smaller vehicles and pedestrians are extremely vulnerable to these goliaths of the highway.
If you have been in an accident involving a commercial truck in western Tennessee, it always helps to have an experienced car accident attorney on your side to help you along the claims process.
The Big Impacts of Commercial Truck Crashes
The Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) works in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Transportation to analyze crash data. Their findings for 2021 revealed that commercial truck accidents resulted in more than 4,700 fatalities. This was 11% of all motor vehicle deaths and 17% more than 2020.
Of these fatalities, only 16% were truck drivers; occupants of smaller vehicles accounted for 68% of deaths. In 1975, fatal crash data began to be collected, and in 2009, fatalities from commercial truck crashes were at their lowest. The number of deaths in 2021 was 50% higher than 2009’s total.
Annual reports from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) find patterns in large truck and bus crashes. The statistics derived from these reports relate statistics concerning fatalities, injuries, and property damage from crashes involving large vehicles like commercial trucks and buses. This data breaks down the data collected from 2010 to 2020, describing the types of buses involved in fatal crashes into percentages:
- Intercity buses = 11%
- Transit buses = 35%
- School buses = 38%
The Major Causes of Commercial Truck Crashes
There are a couple of variables that play major factors in commercial truck crashes, including:
- Large trucks and loaded tractor-trailers require more distance to stop, 20% to 40% more distance than smaller vehicles. The distance is even greater with poorly maintained brakes or on slick roads.
- Federal regulations cap their driving time at 11 hours. These regulations are routinely violated, and drivers push past their allowed driving periods.
- Neglecting routine checks can cause malfunctions. The same goes for manufacturer defects which could lead to lawsuits concerning the truck or its parts manufacturers.
The force from a commercial truck’s impact is far more severe than that of a car. With these forceful impacts come more property damage, more injuries, and more deaths.
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The Complex Lawsuits of Commercial Truck Crashes
When a crash involves a commercial truck, it is not like an accident involving two passenger vehicles. In a commercial truck crash, an injured party’s lawsuit names more than just the truck driver. It may also encompass the trucking company, truck or parts manufacturers, cargo loaders, and a host of other entities.
Usually, trucking companies and manufacturers have aggressive insurance companies and employ a team of skilled lawyers to represent them. Their sole purpose is to battle against paying large settlements.
The injured need a personal injury attorney on their side to fight for their rights. An experienced attorney knows how to navigate the landscape of a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit. Attorneys have experts to investigate the causes of the crash, analyzing:
- The trucking company’s safety and driving records
- How the truck’s cargo was loaded
- Any related training, licenses, certifications
Gathering information to use as evidence is a cumbersome process, and when a commercial trucking company is involved, the time-consuming process is full of complex turns. This should not be the job of someone who is trying to recover from their injuries.
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The Confounding Math of Commercial Truck Crashes
Trucking companies have more at stake when a claim is filed. Typically, these cases contain multiple parties with more property damage, more severe injuries, and more fatalities.
During this complex legal process, an attorney can put together an equation of economic, non-economic, and punitive damages. The figures associated with these damages can be challenging, but simply stated, there are three types of damages that can be compensated for in a personal injury lawsuit, including:
- Economic damages
- Medical Expenses like hospital and doctor visits, surgeries, and medications
- Lost income as a result of the crash
- Property damage
- Non-economic damages
- Pain and suffering
- Emotional distress
- Loss of consortium
- Punitive damages
- Trucking or insurance companies acting in bad faith or maliciously fraudulent
There is no cap on economic damages in the state of Tennessee. The cap for non-economic damages is $750,000.
Catastrophic Injuries
There is an exception to this cap if the victim of a commercial truck crash sustains catastrophic injuries. In these cases, the $750,000 cap rises to $1 million.
Examples of catastrophic injuries are:
- Amputation of hands or feet
- Severe burns over more than 40% of the body
- Spinal cord injuries
- Wrongful death of a parent of a minor child
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Contact a Car Accident Attorney Today
The skilled car accident attorneys at Gatti, Keltner, Bienvenu & Montesi, PLC have been there to help when thousands of injured people in western Tennessee and the surrounding areas of Arkansas and Mississippi needed it.
It costs car accident victims time and money to recover properly. We are here to fight for the compensation the injured need. Stationed in Memphis, our personal injury lawyers are here to help you recover while holding liable parties accountable for their negligence. If you are someone you love was injured in a commercial truck accident, schedule a free, no-obligation consultation by completing our quick contact form.