Every crash is dangerous, but truck crashes are particularly serious.
Truck collisions often happen on the freeway, and the combination of speed and size involved in a truck collision compounds their danger.
Despite your best efforts to drive safely, a truck collision can happen at any time.
If you get into a collision with a truck in the Athens region, it is important, after seeking medical attention, to retain the services of an experienced truck accident attorney as soon as possible.
For a free, no-obligation consultation, please call (706) 354-4000 or reach us online today.
If you have catastrophic injuries from a truck crash or your loved one was killed in a crash with a semi-truck, call us 24/7 and speak to an experienced personal injury attorney. If it’s after hours or on a weekend or holiday, hit the prompt to speak to a live person and tell the receptionist you have serious injuries from a truck crash and would like to speak to an attorney immediately. They will patch you through to one of our skilled truck accident lawyers.
How an Athens Truck Accident Attorney Can Help
There are several ways that an experienced truck accident lawyer in Athens can help you after a collision. It may be tempting to try to settle a claim on your own, but there is no substitute for an attorney’s expertise.
Investigating the Crash
An Athens truck wreck attorney can investigate the collision and work out the best possible legal strategy for you. Your injury lawyer will conduct the necessary investigation of what happened so you can focus on your recovery.
An investigation will include collecting evidence such as police reports, witness statements, and injury summaries, and analyzing the evidence to piece together the events of the crash.
Your attorney may uncover hidden causes of the crash like trucking regulation violations or negligence on the part of the truck driver. With this evidence in hand, your case becomes stronger.
Being Your Primary Point of Contact
After a truck crash in Athens, you may receive calls from several different parties. The opposing party’s insurance company may call you repeatedly to try to pressure you into a settlement.
You may also receive similar calls from the opposing parties’ lawyers or even medical bill collections services telling you to pay your bills immediately. Your attorney can handle all of these calls for you, so you can focus on your life instead of the minute and stressful details of the case.
Recovering Damages
A truck accident lawyer can help you recover the damages you are entitled to following an accident with a big truck. Instead of trying to compile and add up all of your medical bills, lost wages, and property damages yourself, your lawyer can do it for you. With their experience, truck accident attorneys know exactly how to calculate damages and be thorough in the process.
In addition to economic damages, your truck accident lawyer will also be able to account for non-economic damages like pain and suffering and place an adequate value on them. Retaining a truck accident lawyer’s services is the best way to maximize your damages award.
Negotiating on Your Behalf
Insurance companies often try to take advantage of people who are representing themselves. Their lawyers may do the same. Insurance companies and attorneys have considerable experience in negotiations, and they will use their expertise to their advantage.
The outcome of their negotiating tactics may leave you with unrecovered damages. As a tactic, they may purposely drag negotiations on to the point where you no longer have time to file a lawsuit. This is not what you want when handling a truck collision claim.
You are entitled to recover all the damages you suffer from the at fault driver and company, and should not settle for less. The best way to ensure that you are not taken advantage of in negotiations is to have a skilled and experienced Georgia trucking accident lawyer advocating on your behalf.
What Makes Truck Accident Claims Unique?
While truck crashes are similar to car crashes in many ways, truck collisions come with their own complexities. For this reason, it’s important your Athens truck accident lawyer brings experience and skill to the table.
The Severity of Truck Accidents
Severe damages are more prevalent in truck collisions. The size and weight of trucks make it likely that they may severely damage other vehicles on the road. Furthermore, most truck collisions happen on interstates at high speeds, and high speeds make collisions more severe.
The severity of vehicle damage often corresponds with the severity of personal injuries. Severe injuries lead to higher medical bills, lost wages, and rehabilitation costs. Since the costs are high, the stakes are also high, and litigation becomes more complex. In this situation, it is best to have someone with experience on your side.
Liability in Truck Crashes
Liability in truck crashes can quickly complicate a case. Unlike typical car collisions, where it is most often the drivers of the vehicles who are at fault, truck collisions have a few other potentially liable parties.
The potentially liable parties include the truck driver, the truck owner, the trucking company, the cargo loading company, and even the truck’s safety equipment manufacturer.
Truck Drivers and Their Employers
First, the truck driver may be liable for the crash. Similarly, the truck driver’s employer may be held liable for their employee’s actions.
The company may also be directly liable if they force their drivers to drive beyond federally established time limits, fail to run an adequate background check on their driver, or engage in other negligent behavior.
Manufacturers
If a mechanical component of the truck fails on the road and causes the crash, the equipment manufacturer may be liable for the damage. This opens the door to several different responsible parties.
The manufacturer of the shipping container, the truck’s safety equipment, or even the truck company itself can be held liable if it is their equipment that causes the crash.
Truck Owner or Cargo Loading Company
If the truck owner, which may differ from the company that employs the driver, fails to maintain the vehicle properly, they may be held liable. Even the company that loads the freight may be liable if they do so improperly or unsafely and it causes a crash.
The number of potentially liable parties in a truck crash underscores the necessity of having an experienced truck accident attorney. Identifying the potentially liable parties, and being thorough in the investigation are two of the most important parts of any truck crash case. Suing the right parties is important to your claim, so it is best to have someone experienced in this type of litigation.
Contact Our Athens Truck Accident Lawyers Today
If you have been injured in a truck crash, you deserve dedicated and innovative representation to help you.
To find such representation, contact Blasingame, Burch, Garrard & Ashley, P.C.’s Athens truck accident attorneys for help with your claim. BBGA has provided Georgians with knowledgeable, professional, and dedicated legal representation for 40 years. In that time, we have recovered more than $1 Billion for our clients.
Contact us online or call our firm at (706) 354-4000 today for a free consultation.
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