What Makes Trucking Accidents Different

Attorney Jason Itkin explains why a collision with an 18-wheeler is nothing like a car accident: the physics are different, the law is different, and the companies on the other side are different.

The Weight & the Rules

A loaded 18-wheeler outweighs a passenger car many times over, which is why the same collision that dents a bumper in a car wreck ends careers and lives in a trucking wreck. And because commercial trucks are that dangerous, they operate under a body of federal and state regulations covering who can drive, brakes, lighting, inspections, speed, and maintenance. When our truck accident lawyers investigate a crash, those rules are the measuring stick, and the violations are the case.

“There’s a series of laws and rules that matter that are in place to protect all of us from drivers and vehicles that shouldn’t be on the road.”

Why These Crashes Keep Happening

Jason has investigated enough trucking cases to stop being surprised by what the evidence shows: drivers texting, driving twenty hours straight, speeding, watching videos behind the wheel. The pattern traces back to companies hiring the cheapest drivers and charging the cheapest rates, with safety treated as someone else’s problem. Holding them accountable is what we do, and it is why we have won the biggest trucking cases across the country.

“Almost every time we get a call, it’s because some trucking company decided to break the law, break the rules, and put their own interests, their own profitability, above the safety of each of us.”

Full Transcript

Trucking cases and car accident cases may sound like they’re similar because they’re vehicle accidents on the road, but they are totally different. When an 18-wheeler or a giant commercial vehicle runs into a Honda Civic or a passenger car or even a pickup truck, just the sheer amount of weight that is in an 18-wheeler that’s loaded up causes so much more damage and so much more impact that people end up with really serious injuries. That’s piece one.

But piece two, the law is different. There’s a whole host of both federal and state regulations that apply to commercial trucks, so trucks that are working for businesses, that are hauling things, that are moving things across the country. They have what we call them the CFRs, but they’re rules and regulations about who’s allowed to drive the vehicle, what the brakes are supposed to look like, how the vehicle’s supposed to have certain lighting, what type of inspections you’re supposed to do, how fast you can operate, how frequently you’re supposed to do the maintenance. There’s a series of laws and rules that matter that are in place to protect all of us from drivers and vehicles that shouldn’t be on the road.

And too often, almost every time we get a call, it’s because some trucking company decided to break the law, break the rules, and put their own interests, their own profitability, above the safety of each of us.

We have won the biggest trucking cases all across the country, in multiple states. It shouldn’t surprise me when I find someone’s been texting and driving. It shouldn’t surprise me when I find someone has been driving 20 hours straight without taking a break. It shouldn’t surprise me when I find out that somebody has been speeding or watching YouTube videos instead of watching the road. It shouldn’t surprise me because it happens all the time.

That’s the practice of what these trucking companies do because they’re trying to hire the very cheapest drivers, to charge the very cheapest rates, to move things back and forth, and they give no interest and they put no care in making sure that all of us are safe. They just want to make the most money they possibly can.

Call us, email us, text us. 

We’ll respond and hold the people who did it accountable and make sure that your family’s taken care of.