California truck drivers can get careless and end up causing a devastating collision with other vehicles.
In many cases, the driver and the driver’s employer are liable for accident victims and their recovery costs.
Victims must take the right steps to ensure they receive full compensation for their medical bills and lost income.
The Day of The Accident
Safety First: You should call 911 to get the police or the CHP on the way. Request an ambulance if you or anyone else is hurt at all. Get fully examined by the ambulance crew and go to the hospital if necessary.
Collect Evidence on the Scene: If it’s safe to do so and you are strong enough. You’ll want to gather all the evidence you can before it disappears.
- Get photos of the damage to the vehicles, including the truck. Show any company signage on the big rig. Show any visible injuries you have.
- Get witness contact information.
- Get the truck driver’s insurance, driver’s license info, and employee number if possible. An investigating officer may provide this information to you.
- Give officers a full report on what you saw before the accident, including if the truck driver was speeding or acting recklessly.
- Alert your insurance provider, even if you weren’t at fault.
If you must leave for the hospital, ask someone with you or a helpful witness to take photos and to grab some information.
The First Few Days After The Accident
There are some important steps to complete in the days right after an accident.
See Your Doctor: Schedule an appointment with your family doctor, even if you’ve been to the ER. A frightening truck collision can leave you in shock and mask the pain of a hidden injury until the next day. Get all injuries and any new pain examined and documented. Follow your doctor’s orders about seeing specialists and completing physical therapy. Keep all receipts for medical care.
Contact a Lawyer: Not all truck accident victims will need a lawyer’s help to file a successful claim. If you’ve just suffered car damage or very minor injuries, you can probably go it alone. But truck accidents carry a lot of force, and injuries are often much worse.
If you’ve suffered a serious injury, like a leg fracture, a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), or a neck or back injury, and a truck driver was to blame, it’s a good idea to talk to a California truck accident lawyer as soon as possible. Your lawyer would begin investigating the accident and the truck driver’s record immediately. Evidence would be gathered until you had a strong case to file. Maison Law is often able to secure much more for you than you could win yourself.
See: Frequently Asked Questions By Truck Accident Victims
In the Following Weeks (Building Your Case)
In many cases, you’ll need a lot of proof of a truck driver’s carelessness. That truck driver may work for a corporation or agricultural company that can afford teams of lawyers. They’ll try to blame the accident on you or try to question your doctor’s opinion on the seriousness of your injury.
Gather Evidence: Your attorney would fight back by investigating the accident and pulling up the truck driver’s record. The trucking company’s safety record and hiring practices would also be under scrutiny. The details you collected at the scene would also factor in. This keeps commercial truck insurance providers from finding ways to dismiss your claim. Your lawyer would also obtain the Collision Report for your incident, which would be requested from local police or the California Highway Patrol.
Damage calculation: The other important task during this period is to create a complete list of your injury hardships. Things like your hospital invoices and your lost paychecks while you’ve been in rehab will become important documents. They’ll need to be added up. The pain you endure and the emotional trauma that’s caused in a scary big rig collision would be worth additional money in a claim. Your attorney could help you determine the total on your damages and determine a fair total to ask for in compensation. Find out how to calculate your pain and suffering.
A Month or Two After Your Truck Accident (Filing and Negotiating)
Filing Your Truck Accident Claim: Once your case is backed with powerful evidence, it’s time to submit a claim to the trucking company’s insurer. You can file your claim in the form of an initial demand letter.
This letter informs the insurers of your evidence and your demands.
You can visit our page on sending your own demand letter. A lawyer can handle this letter and filing for you. A lawyer can handle this and the other frustrating parts of the claim process, while you are free to continue your recovery.
Negotiating Your Settlement: The truck insurance provider may not accept your demand and could make a counteroffer. Your attorney would help you evaluate this offer and reject it if it didn’t cover everything you’ve been through. An experienced lawyer who has experience negotiating with giant insurance companies will be a big help here.
If you sign off on a settlement, the injury claim process ends, and you receive a settlement check. From the date of your accident, a claim may only take from a couple of months to six months. But some cases aren’t wrapped up so quickly. When there’s a dispute over fault, cases can take anywhere from six months to over a year to settle.
A Year After Your Accident (Lawsuit)
If a trucking company refuses to accept blame for your accident and injuries, a lawsuit may be the only option left. Unfortunately, resolving a case in court can take a while. In California, you may be lucky to get a court date within a year. Thankfully, your attorney will already have prepared a strong case for court just in case.
This step isn’t usually necessary. Insurers hate to go to trial because it’s expensive for them and can lead to unwanted publicity. With the real threat of a trial, they often decide to meet your demands and provide what you want in a settlement.
Contact a California Truck Accident Lawyer If You’ve Been Hurt
Martin Gasparian, the founder of Maison Law, offers a free case consultation for injured truck accident victims and their families. It’s a chance to determine what you should demand and how to force commercial truck insurance companies to accept full responsibility.
You may need a lawyer, but feel you can’t afford one. That’s not a worry with Maison Law. We work on a contingency basis for injured victims. It means we don’t get paid unless we win the case for you. Then our fee comes out of the settlement an insurance company must write for you.
