Navigating A Florida Truck Accident Claim

Truck accidents almost always result in substantial property damage and serious injuries. Filing a claim after one of these kinds of collisions also comes with a unique set of complex insurance and liability-related issues. For this reason, collecting financial compensation after a truck accident often proves to be much more complicated than for those who were involved in collisions between standard-sized vehicles.

Truck Accidents Result in Severe Injuries

Truck accidents are different from most other crashes. The injuries sustained in these kinds of collisions, for instance, are almost always severe. This makes sense when you consider the fact that commercial vehicles can outweigh passenger cars by as much as 75,000 pounds. This, combined with factors like cargo load volume, braking capacity, and speed make it almost inevitable that the force of an impact in a truck accident will be catastrophic in nature. Generally, the more severe injuries are, the higher the damages, which almost always means that the insurer will be reluctant to pay out the full value of a claim.

There are More Regulations for Truck Drivers

Recognizing that commercial vehicles come with a serious risk for other drivers, lawmakers and federal regulators have put a lot of rules in place with which truck drivers and trucking companies must comply. Operators and owners of commercial vehicles are, for instance, held to much higher standards when it comes to licensing, maintenance, cargo loading, and training drivers. Drivers are even limited in the number of consecutive hours they can drive, as fatigued driving is often cited as the main cause of truck accidents. To recover compensation after a truck accident, an injured party may need to point to one or more of these rules as being violated by the driver or trucking company.

More Parties are Involved

A lot of car accidents involve only two parties, the person injured and the driver who caused the crash. This is rarely the case with truck accidents, where it is much more likely that due to the truck’s size, more vehicles will be involved. Even if a truck accident only involved two vehicles, there will likely be multiple defendants, including:

• The truck’s driver;
• The driver’s employer;
• The owner of the truck;
• The owner of the cargo being shipped; or
• A vehicle parts manufacturer.

The number of parties who could bear some responsibility for an accident tend to make resolving liability a lot more complicated in truck accident cases. This is where having an experienced truck accident attorney on one’s side can make the most difference.

Schedule a Free Consultation Today

Truck accident cases involve high stakes, so defendants tend to be reluctant to pay out the full value of a claim. An experienced and skilled Tampa truck accident lawyer can advocate for you and can help ensure that any settlement or damages award that you receive is fair and sufficient to cover your losses. At Anderson & Anderson, our firm has been helping residents of Florida recover compensation after their accidents for more than 40 years. For an evaluation of your own case, call us at 813-251-0072 today.

Sources:

fmcsa.dot.gov/sites/fmcsa.dot.gov/files/2020-10/FMCSA

csa.fmcsa.dot.gov/Documents/Jun9_HOS_Presentation_508.pdf