San Jose Truck Accident Lawyer

Why Truck Accident Cases Are Not Just “Big Car Accidents”

Trucking is a federally regulated industry. Commercial carriers and their drivers must follow Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) rules on how many hours a driver can be behind the wheel, how vehicles are inspected and maintained, and how cargo is secured. When those rules are broken, the violation itself becomes evidence of negligence.

Truck cases also come with evidence a car accident does not have, and that evidence does not wait for you:

• The truck’s electronic logging device (ELD) records driving hours and can prove a fatigued driver was over the legal limit.
• Driver qualification files, inspection records, and maintenance logs the carrier is required to keep.
• Dash-cam and telematics data that carriers may only retain for a limited time.
• The police report and scene investigation. This is where our background matters: before his legal career, James Hann spent five years as a police dispatcher for the UC San Diego Police Department, hearing in real time how officers investigate and document a crash. He reads accident reports with an insider’s eye for what got recorded, what got missed, and what to demand next.

Getting a preservation letter to the trucking company quickly is often the difference between a documented case and a disputed one.

Who Is at Fault in a Truck Accident?

California follows a pure comparative negligence rule. Under this rule, more than one party can share responsibility for a crash, and you can still recover compensation even if you were partially at fault; your recovery is simply reduced by your percentage of responsibility.

Truck accidents often involve more than one responsible party. With the help of our truck accident lawyers in San Jose, you can determine which of the following parties, if any, may be partially negligent in your accident:

• Truck driver: The driver may be responsible if they were driving recklessly, fatigued, or otherwise failing to obey traffic laws. 
• Truck company: The company the truck driver works for may assume vicarious liability even if the driver was fully at fault. Other times, truck companies are liable because they forced a driver to work unsafe hours or failed to train the driver adequately. 
• Truck manufacturer: The manufacturer of the truck may be partially responsible if it installed faulty parts in the vehicle, causing a malfunction that led to your accident. 
• Cargo loader: Trucks need properly balanced loads to avoid jackknifing and shifting uncontrollably when changing lanes. If the person in charge of loading the cargo failed to do so safely, they may be partially responsible for the truck crash. 
• Another driver: Perhaps another driver cut the truck driver off or otherwise contributed to the accident.