Semi-Truck Injury Attorney
Most of the crashes are caused by either distracted driving or driver fatigue. This is a result of placing a driver in a truck for long hours: the driver becomes tired and bored, and this is a recipe for disaster.
Hire a Truck Accident Lawyer; Hire Glasheen, Valles & Inderman
Contact us if you’ve been injured in an 18-wheeler crash. We are an experienced personal injury law firm representing many personal injury cases. Our semi-truck injury attorneys know the important steps to take to preserve evidence early on in the case, like sending a preservation-of-evidence letter and obtaining a download of the semi’s data recorder. Glasheen, Valles & Inderman represented four students involved in a semi-truck-school-bus wreck near Big Lake, Texas. In that case, the truck driver fell asleep at the wheel and his truck rear-ended a school bus. Our clients had multiple injuries including broken legs. We hired sleep deprivation experts and truck driving experts to show the nature and dangers of driving while fatigued.
Our truck accident lawyers located several former employees of the defendant who testified that driving fatigue was a regular problem that went unaddressed. With the help of our team, our clients received the best orthopedic medical care and therapy. We helped our clients structure the settlement to ensure that the children will have an opportunity to attend any college and helped them establish a secure lifetime income.
Act Quickly
Because truck wreck cases can be complex, gathering as much evidence as possible early on is critically important. If you or a loved one has been involved in a truck wreck, the most important thing you can do is quickly contact a personal injury attorney who has experience with truck wrecks. Time is of the essence. Critical evidence disappears, is deleted, or is otherwise unavailable within days of the crash. This includes tire skid marks, the truck driver’s cell phone information, vehicle inspections and more. Hiring an attorney as soon as possible allows the attorney to quickly preserve evidence, maximizing the value of your case and the likelihood of a positive outcome.
"Glasheen Valles and Inderman was the best choice by far." - Eleana Flores
Unsurpassed Experience
The semi-truck injury attorneys at Glasheen, Valles & Inderman have experts to inspect trucks involved in accidents. In many cases, the trucks have service violations such as brakes that are out of adjustment. Many trucks now have GPS devices that record the movement of the trucks, so that we can compare the truck’s movements to the logbooks. We can sometimes also determine the speed of the truck from this GPS information or from a download of the truck’s airbag control module, or ACM.
The ACM contains a wealth of valuable information like whether cruise control was engaged, whether the driver turned the steering wheel before the crash, whether the brakes were applied, and more. Our firm also has cell phone experts that can download the truck driver’s cell phone usage history, including calls, texts, and internet use. This data can be critical in proving the truck driver was distracted at the time of the crash.
Federal Law
In addition to the common law negligence principles, the operation of commercial trucks is governed by federal rules and regulations promulgated by the Department of Transportation, and in some cases other federal agencies as well. DOT rules impose strict pre-employment screening requirements and ongoing drug testing requirements. They also require truck drivers to thoroughly inspect their vehicles before and after their shifts and document problems requiring attention.
They impose maximum hours of service to reduce the likelihood that a fatigued driver will get behind the wheel, and also impose a variety of other placarding and record-keeping requirements. Federal regulations also prohibit commercial vehicle drivers from texting while driving, which is defined as “manually entering alphanumeric text into, or reading text from, an electronic device.” Some companies are unaware of all of the rules and regulations that apply to them and others ignore them. Again, the results can be catastrophic.
Log Books
In many truck wreck cases, we also discover that truck drivers have falsified their logbooks in order to operate outside the maximum hours of service allowed under DOT Regulations. Trucking companies sometimes create incentive programs that give their drivers an incentive to break the law by driving faster or for more hours than are allowed by law.
Regardless of how it occurs, where truck wrecks result from negligence, the law provides a basis for you to recover just compensation for your losses. Those losses may include medical expenses, lost wages, property damage, future earnings potential damages, and other compensation.
