Slidell, LA Truck Accident Lawyers
Vehicles such as commercial trucks, tractor-trailers, or 18-wheelers are often more susceptible to rollovers and may be more likely to overturn if they hit a guardrail or make a sudden turn. The massive size and weight make the vehicle difficult to maneuver, particularly at high speeds.
When a trucking accident occurs, the injuries sustained by the truck’s occupants may be far worse than those suffered by passengers in a smaller passenger vehicle involved in the same collision. Truck wrecks also often cause severe injuries to other vehicle occupants and bystanders.
Commercial truck accidents are not uncommon in the Pelican State. In fact, over the last few years, Louisiana has seen its fair share of big rig crashes that have resulted in 69 fatalities and 1368 cases of personal injury. These statistics indicate the need for more stringent regulation of commercial trucks in and around Slidell, LA, to stem the rising number of accidents involving these vehicles.
Get Our Slidell, LA Truck Accident Attorneys on Your Side
Commercial truck companies in Slidell, LA and their insurers are often aggressive about denying or minimizing the compensation that you may be entitled to after an accident. At Trainor law firm, our truck crash attorneys have deep legal expertise and extensive experience in protecting the rights of injured victims in commercial truck accidents. Our lawyers will thoroughly investigate your accident and do everything within the ambit of law to help you obtain your rightful compensation from the at-fault party.
Reasons Why Truck Accidents Are Complicated
Several things make truck accidents in Slidell, LA more complicated than passenger car accidents. Some of these reasons include:
- Commercial trucks are much bigger than consumer vehicles, weighing up to 80,000 pounds and are designed to haul heavy loads, making crashes more severe and leaving larger debris fields. The truck is likely to have plenty of damage, and most accidents involve multiple vehicles.
- Trucking companies invest in systems and procedures to keep their drivers safe. Their drivers are backed up by an extensive network of a legal team, investigators and technology that offer support and guidance to quickly resolve these issues and protect our clients from costly litigation.
- Legal investigations into truck accidents require a thorough understanding of federal and state regulations for commercial drivers, including records required to maintain.
You can rest assured our legal team will work quickly to take the initiative after a truck accident. We’ll make it a priority to acquire crash records and preserve other evidence essential to your case. In addition, we may use the judicial process to force trucking companies to hand over any in-cab video systems or electronic data recorders for your case.
In more complex cases, we seek assistance from crash reconstruction consultants. These experts can study the accident to determine what happened and create a detailed report. They can even provide expert witness testimony accompanied with CGI animation to help juries understand how a crash occurred.
Once we have the data, our experts use it to establish accountability and determine liability for the crash. We also analyze police reports and witness statements and hire vehicle inspectors. We may also obtain records from the drivers’ employers that help us understand what type of driving they were doing at the time of the crash.
Causes of Truck Accidents in Slidell, LA
There are numerous possible causes for a truck accident. The most common reasons are driver error, excessive speeding, unsafe or negligent attitude towards the rules of the road, road hazards, defective truck parts, and even faulty truck maintenance. Besides, truck drivers, like anyone else, can become distracted, fatigued, or impaired at any time. This fact is the same whether they are on their morning commute to work or traveling across the country.
By knowing the most common trucking accident causes, you can take steps to prevent those causes from happening to you and your truck. Being prepared before you hit the road could help you and other drivers avoid a traffic accident and serious injuries.
Who is at Fault in a Slidell, LA Trucking Accident?
Many truck accident reports cite the truck driver as the cause of the trucking accident. However, in most events involving trucks and automobiles, there are multiple potentially responsible parties. The car driver may likewise be at fault for negligence, or she may have been hurt so badly in the accident that her compensation claim is compromised or simply not feasible. Below are the potential parties who can be held accountable if found negligent:
- Truck drivers and trucking companies have a duty to maintain their equipment and mechanical parts properly. They also have to obey traffic laws and use their equipment’s safety features such as turn signals, brake lights, and horns. These duties may help avoid accidents. A negligent driver or truck company may contribute to a truck accident in Slidell, LA, by violating duty or not maintaining safe equipment.
- The trailer owner has the usual potential liability that applies to any vehicle not owned by the driver. If the driver did not violate any traffic laws, the trailer owner would share responsibility for injuries if he/she/it allowed the truck to be used, knowing its mechanical condition was unsafe, or its cargo contained dangerous substances.
- When a shipper loads cargo improperly, it can cause a truck to roll over. If a load shifts, it will make the truck top-heavy and make it more difficult for a driver to control the vehicle. If the load is unstable, the driver may lose control of the truck and cause an accident.
How can Slidell LA Truck Accident Lawyers Be of Help?
It’s not every day that you find yourself in a severe truck accident. But finding the right law firm to handle your case may prove challenging, especially if your physical injuries make it difficult to concentrate. At Trainor Law Firm, LLC our team of Slidell truck accident lawyers is committed to handling all aspects of your case, from comprehensive case management to aggressive litigation.
Trucking accidents are very complex and generally require an experienced personal injury lawyer to handle them. We are aware of the federal regulations that apply to commercial trucks and the state-specific rules for Louisiana. We have handled numerous truck accidents throughout the state. We are dedicated to protecting the rights of injured persons after a truck wreck.
Our legal team understands the trucking industry and the unique risks involved in trucking operations. We know what evidence to look for to ensure you don’t get pushed aside or forgotten about by the insurance company or police investigators who are supposed to be working for you. To find out an estimate of how much your case might be worth, fill out the contact form online or call us at 985-900-2250 to schedule a free and confidential consultation.