Orange County Truck Accident Lawyers

Compared to other types of motor vehicle crash cases, such as car accidents, tractor-trailer accident cases are more complicated because there may be multiple parties at fault, including the owner of the truck, the owner of the trailer, the company that packed the trailer, and the driver’s employer. 

But truck accident lawyer at our firm is well-versed in the federal safety regulations that apply to large truck companies, and we have successfully prosecuted cases involving semi-truck accidents in Southern California. To learn more about your legal rights and your rights to financial compensation, Contact us and a semi-truck accident attorney will give you a no-cost review of your case.

Causes of Commercial Truck Accidents

A review of more than 120,000 big-truck crashes and mishaps involving injuries or fatalities completed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) concluded that 87% of crashes were due to driver negligence. Types of driver negligence included:

• Driver fatigue
• Distraction
• Driving too fast
• Poor decision-making
• Unfamiliarity with the area
• Improper braking or jackknifing
• Drug use

When evaluating the factors evaluated in causing truck accidents, the FMCSA found that 10% of the crashes involved vehicle defects or maintenance problems, such as worn-out brakes or tires. The remaining 3% of crashes were related to environmental factors including inclement weather.

The common phrase “if you bought it, a truck brought it” refers to how virtually every product we purchase has spent at least some time on a commercial vehicle during the product’s distribution and shipping process. The trucking industry is now a trillion-dollar business in the United States and contributes more than 10% to the country’s gross domestic product, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Truck operators deliver more goods and contribute more to the national economy than all other types of transportation combined.

The sheer power and size of the truck industry is something that all people injured in a crash must acknowledge from the inception of their case. This power plays a role in why your accident happened in the first place and how the case is handled during the claims process. When you are injured in a truck accident, you have entered a world that is controlled by huge corporations. Unless you hold their feet to the fire, your case will not be evaluated fairly.

There is constant pressure on all parts of the truck industry to deliver goods faster and more cheaply. At some point, the most comprehensive safety plans will give in to the never-ending need for corporate profitability.

Cases Managed by Our Orange County Truck Accident Lawyers

While these may be “official” categorizations of trucking accidents, our truck accident law firm regularly prosecutes trucking cases referred to as:

• Rear-end accidents
• Intersection crashes
• Left-hand-turn accidents
• Head-on impacts

Seek a Truck Accident Attorney for Significant Injuries

Related to Trucking Accidents according to the California office of traffic safety(OTS)’s statistics, Fatal truck collisions where the truck driver was at fault have increased from 70 in 2014 to 74 in 2015, and injury truck collisions where the truck driver was at fault have also increased from 2,473 in 2014 to 2,693 in 2015. Many of our current and former clients have sustained the following injuries related to collisions with trucks:

• Fractures
• Back and neck injuries, including herniated discs
• Brain injuries
• Paralysis
• Internal injury to organs
• Joint injuries such as the knee, hip, and shoulder
• Fatalities

Ninety-eight of the crashes involved fatalities, and 2,021 involved a severe injury. While California statistics do not identify the locations of these incidents, our experience tells us that a substantial number of these occur in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, where businesses and factories are heavily concentrated.

Each truck injury lawyer from our firm has experience in representing motorists, passengers, and truck drivers, and we can attest to the life-changing injuries these accidents frequently involve.

From the time a semi-truck attorney from our office is retained in a trucking accident case, the trucking accident attorney helps the client get access to some of the most respected doctors so that they can get the best care possible for their injuries. We believe that our clients should receive the best medical care from physicians who will treat their injuries and support them in court should we call upon them to testify at trial.

Truck Accident Lawyers can Establish Driver Negligence in Accident Cases

As attorneys who routinely prosecute truck accident and fatality cases, we base our strategies on these detailed regulations to establish negligence or fault in our cases. The more common portions of the regulations used to prosecute trucking cases involve:

• Drug and alcohol testing
• Hours of service
• Vehicle marking
• Vehicle maintenance
• Insurance for trucks
• Loading procedures and securing the loads
• Weight restrictions

When pursuing a truck accident lawsuit for personal injuries, you must establish that the party that you are suing acted negligently and that their negligence resulted in your injuries. “Negligence” is a relatively general and subjective term. An example of negligence would be that a truck driver operated their vehicle recklessly, but what may be deemed “reckless conduct” by one person may not be judged to be so by another.

Another method of determining negligent behavior in a commercial trucking case is to establish that there was a violation of the law that applies to semi-trucks. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is an agency that regulates the laws that apply to the trucking industry, overseeing virtually every aspect of trucking freight.

Get Help From a Semi-Truck Accident Lawyer in Southern California

If you have been injured or lost a loved one in a commercial truck accident, you will likely face obstacles from the companies that insure the involved trucking businesses and their lawyers. To recover the maximum compensation that the law entitles you to receive, you need to have an attorney who has experience settling and litigating cases against truck companies and other corporate defendants.

Immediately following a crash involving a semi-truck, the insurance carriers for the companies involved spring into action to begin gathering information to assist them in defending the case. Typically, accident investigators who work for liability insurance carriers are deployed to the scene of the incident to collect information such as photographs of the vehicles, photos of the road conditions, and statements from people who witnessed the collision. These experienced accident investigators are good at what they do, compiling information to assist in defense of serious injury cases stemming from a collision with their insured.

But when you hire the Injury Law Office of Jimmie Kang, you’ll have us doing the same thing on your side. We remain mindful that these cases need to be investigated aggressively as soon as feasible after a crash, and a truck accident lawyer from our firm will gather evidence that is favorable to our clients and identify all parties responsible for causing harm and damage. We regularly work with accident investigators and re-constructionists to gather the evidence needed to win the case. Our efforts may involve:

• Taking sworn statements from parties and witnesses
• Ordering police and investigative reports
• Reviewing video camera footage
• Studying the sequence of traffic control devices
• Analyzing data from black-box recorders

To successfully resolve a semi-truck case, we may pursue claims against any party who might be responsible for causing your injuries. This effort might require filing a lawsuit against the:

• Truck driver
• Employer of the driver
• Owner of the truck
• Leasing company
• Owner of the truck trailer
• Manufacturer of the truck
• Truck maintenance company

Orange County Truck Accident Injury Compensation Our goal in each case is to recover every dollar of compensation that our clients are entitled to receive. California recognizes the right of an injured person to obtain economic and non-economic damages including:

• Medical Costs: This includes all expenses for past and future care, such as ambulance, emergency room, hospital care, surgery, and physical therapy costs, assistive medical devices, and prescription medications.
• Wages: You may recover your lost wages if your injuries prevent you from working following a truck crash. If you are not capable of returning to your profession due to limitations imposed by your injuries, you may recover future lost wages for the remainder of your working life.
• Pain and Suffering: Though this is difficult to quantify, you may recover financial compensation for pain that you endured following an accident as well as the pain that you will likely endure for the rest of your life.

If the crash resulted in a fatality, the family of the deceased may recover compensation for the loss of financial support as well as the intangible loss they will experience due to the death. Sometimes the intangible losses include the loss of society or loss of consortium, depending on the context.

We are confident that our office will provide you with the representation you need to realize the full value of your case. We invite you to contact our office today for a free review of your case with an experienced attorney. Contact usand we will reach out to you the same day to discuss our past truck accident settlements and the prospects of your case.