Los Angeles Truck Accident Attorney

As the home of one of the nation’s largest Pacific ports, Los Angeles sees a lot of truck traffic. The combination of large semi trucks and heavy freeway and roadway traffic makes Los Angeles a hotbed for truck accidents and truck-related injuries and deaths. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 296 Californians died in truck-related accidents in 2015.

Every driver in Los Angeles encounters trucks during their daily commute, whether on surface streets, highways, or rural roads. Here is what you should know about trucks and truck accidents.

Accidents involving tractor-trailer or 18-wheeler trucks can have a variety of causes. The sheer weight of their loads, combined with the stress of thousands of miles, can cause either the tires or brakes of the vehicle to fail. This is often in combination with lax maintenance practices on the part of the trucking company. In other situations, the long hours required of truck drivers can lead to fatigue and human error.

One element of that human error is the decreased road visibility from the truck. On a fast-moving freeway, trucks and their inherent blindspots may prevent them from seeing a smaller vehicle in the lane next to them. The driver then collides with the vehicle in the middle of making the lane change.

No matter what the cause, a collision between a truck and other vehicles on the road is extremely dangerous for all involved. The sheer size and weight of the truck exacerbates the impact of the crash on the victim’s car and its occupants. Even more so than a vehicle-to-vehicle collision, a truck-to-vehicle collision at any speed can result in severe injury or death.

Due to the severity of the impact, brain and spinal cord injuries are more common for the victims of truck accidents. Trucks are fully capable of crushing a smaller vehicle, trapping the driver and any passengers inside the wreck. When a truck and a passenger vehicle collide, it is the latter that loses.

In traditional car accidents, you typically only deal with one party: the insurance company of the insured driver at fault for the accident. While that can present challenges of its own, a truck-vehicle collision is even more complicated because there are now two parties: both the trucking company that owns and manages the truck and its insurance company. Both of these parties want to limit their own liability and what they pay out to victims.

In the state of California, our comparative negligence law essentially means that if the victim of an accident can be found partially at fault for the collision, the compensation to them can be reduced by that percentage of fault. For example, even in a situation where the truck made a lane change into a vehicle, the victim admitting that they were speeding at the time can reduce the compensation the insurance company pays out.

This law motivates trucking companies and their insurers to immediately investigate accidents in the hope of obtaining information they can use to deny you compensation. Their representatives will typically try to engage with you before you have had a chance to speak to a Los Angeles truck accident lawyer like Blair & Ramirez LLP. Any information they collect from you about the accident can and will be used against you at a later point.

All trucks on the road, regardless of trucking company or state, must abide by the regulations of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Association (FMCSA). This part of the Department of Transportation works to ensure that trucks are operating safely and legally, and that their drivers have the training needed to operate the truck in a lawful, safe manner.

If you or a loved one has been involved in a collision with a truck, we highly recommend that you contact us. As an experienced truck accident lawyer in Los Angeles, our attorneys will launch an investigation to determine if the truck and driver involved were in compliance with the standards of the FMCSA and California laws. This evidence can ultimately impact your case for compensation.

If you or a loved one has been injured or killed in a truck accident here in the Los Angeles area, call Blair & Ramirez LLP at (213) 568-4000 to schedule a free consultation.