Hartford Truck Accident Lawyer

When disaster strikes and you’re involved in a truck accident, you may be overwhelmed with everything that follows. The physical injuries, the totaled vehicle, the mental trauma, and the legal aspects of your accident may all be too much. Truck collisions are more likely to cause severe injuries than other types of accidents, and it is crucial to protect yourself after a crash.

The team at The Dodd Law Firm is committed to helping victims like you get fair compensation from negligent drivers, trucking companies, and cargo companies. Call us at 203-272-1883 to set up a consultation with our team of truck accident lawyers in Hartford.

Different Types of Truck Collisions

Truck accidents occur in a variety of ways, and many of the most common types of truck accidents are almost never seen in collisions that only involve passenger vehicles. This is due in large part to trucks’ large size and bulky shape. Common types of truck collisions include:

• Jackknife: Jackknife collisions are possible because a truck carries the vast majority of weight in its trailer. When a driver swerves too quickly, the tractor and trailer may start moving in opposite directions. They end up at a 90-degree angle, and the trailer pulls the tractor along with it.
• Rollover: Since trucks are so top-heavy, they are prone to rolling over. These accidents can be catastrophic, leading to crushed vehicles, multiple fatalities, and tens of thousands of dollars in lost cargo.
• Side-impact: While a sideswipe accident involving passenger vehicles may be relatively minor, it can be serious when a truck is involved. In some cases, a smaller vehicle can actually get wedged underneath the commercial truck.
• Underride: Underride accidents occur when a smaller vehicle runs into the back of a commercial truck, causing them to get stuck underneath the larger truck. The front of the vehicle is generally destroyed, and fatalities may occur.
• Wide turn: When a truck driver swerves left to prepare for a right turn, they may be giving themselves enough space to complete the turn safely. However, they may also go too far left and strike another car or hit the median.

Why Truck Accidents Are So Dangerous

Truck accidents are far riskier than most passenger vehicle collisions. A fully-loaded tractor-trailer can easily weigh 20 times more than a standard passenger vehicle. A vehicle of that size can cause fatal injuries at any speed. A crash that would otherwise be considered minor could result in fatalities or severe injuries simply because a truck is involved.

Furthermore, accidents can become even more dangerous depending on what the truck is carrying at the time. Some trucks are used to carry hazardous materials and chemicals. When a collision occurs, the truck could leak hazardous chemicals all over the roadway. This may lead to explosions or fires if the chemicals interact with anything else on the road. In some cases, the police have to close down the entire roadway until it can be cleaned up.

Federal Regulations

Trucking is a tightly regulated field. This means that there’s a lot of evidence that may be available to you after a crash, as violating these regulations could show that the driver was negligent. Some of the most important regulations relate to a driver’s hours of service.

A property-carrying driver can drive no more than 11 hours after spending at least 10 hours off-duty. After going on duty, they must stop driving 14 hours after the start of their shift. This is true even if they take off-duty time during the 14-hour stretch. A driver cannot drive more than 60 hours in seven days or 70 hours in eight days. Additionally, drivers must take at least 30 minutes off after driving for eight hours.

Violating these regulations puts a driver at significant risk of driving while fatigued. Remember, fatigue doesn’t just apply to physical exhaustion—driving is mentally draining, and someone who has been driving for 12 hours could easily be mentally fatigued. When you talk to your truck accident attorney, they will look at the driver’s logs and see if they were within their hours of service.

Other regulations focus on a driver’s blood alcohol content, truck inspections, and weight limits.

What The Dodd Law Firm Can Do for You

After a truck accident, you may be left reeling. You’re likely suffering from serious injuries and trying to figure out how long you will be off of work. On top of that, you may have to repair or replace your vehicle before you can even get back to your job. Before you’ve had a chance to understand what happened, the insurance company may start calling.

Truck accidents cause an extraordinary amount of damage, and truck companies go to great lengths to absolve themselves of liability. This often means reaching out to victims while they’re still in their hospital beds and trying to get an admission of blame out of them. It may also mean trying to get access to their medical records so the company can look for preexisting injuries that they can blame the injuries on.

As you may imagine, this puts accident victims at a huge disadvantage. While they’re still grappling with the pain of the crash and trying to figure out their next steps, they have an insurance adjuster hounding them for information.

With the team at The Dodd Law Firm, you can feel confident that these techniques will not be used to drive down the value of your claim. While you focus on your healing, we will handle communication with the other party and their insurance company.

We will look at all the evidence available to us, including the accident report, the driver’s history, the trucking logs, the electronic logging device, and photos from the crash scene. You can feel confident knowing that we will fight aggressively to get you what you deserve.

Contact Our Team Today

The sooner you reach out to The Dodd Law Firm, the sooner we can start building a case for you. Let’s sit down and figure out what we can do for you. Call us at 203-272-1883 or send us a message online to get started.