California drivers are regularly asked to share the lanes (and part of their own lanes) with the giant big-rigs that travel the state each day. The length and extreme weight of semi-trucks and trailers contribute to devastating accidents and severe injuries every year.
Personal injury victims often face a stack of medical bills, lost time at work, and must also cope with the physical and emotional pain that follows a California Truck Accident. Victims are right to question why they would have to cover all of these physical, emotional, and financial damages alone.
The fact is they should never be left to face these hardships when a truck driver was to blame for their accident. Once liability is established for a truck driver, and perhaps for the driver’s employer. Additionally, victims may also wonder how much they could receive from a settlement check.
A Free Consultation for California Truck Accident Victims
To get the most accurate assessment of your accident case may earn you, you’ll need to talk over what happened with a real California lawyer.
Fortunately, there’s a no-risk way to speak with a skilled Truck Accident Lawyer with experience protecting people hurt in collisions with semi-trucks. Contact Maison Law of California for a free and confidential case consultation.
It’s a chance to find out what your injury and your suffering may be worth in an insurance claim. You’ll also learn how to make sure insurance companies don’t withhold fair compensation.
Semi-Truck Accident Dangers in California
The size, weight, and shape of big rigs make for very frightening impacts on California freeways and highways. Drivers and passengers can end up underneath these massive vehicles and be waiting on health care while crews cut them free of a crash.
These vehicles can be hard to handle, but the true cause of most truck collisions is truck driver carelessness and recklessness. Truck drivers deal with a lot of distractions as they make their short and long hauls. They could be texting or even watching a movie when the traffic ahead suddenly comes to a stop. They may receive an update on their delivery and not notice they’ve veered out of their lane.
Truck drivers can also be traveling way too fast for the loads they carry. A fully-loaded truck might be barreling down a steep grade, exceeding the speed limit, and have little chance of stopping to prevent a collision. At such speeds and carrying such weight, even a minor course correction threatens to send a big rig out of control.
California truck accident victims and their families suffer the true costs of these dangerous mistakes. Victims might have their lives changed in an instant and families could have a loved one taken from them.
A California personal injury lawyer works to secure full support for victims as they recover. A lawyer also safeguards families after they’ve lost a loved one. A family lawyer secures a fair insurance settlement to protect them in the future when they’ll be without a loved one’s care and financial support.
California Truck Accident Settlement Amounts
The victims of truck accidents deserve to know what kind of support they should expect from trucking companies and their insurance providers. However, the truth is, a reliable estimate of settlement values is impossible until the full details of an accident and the injury diagnosis are known. All truck accidents and the injuries they cause vary greatly and so do the settlements they earn.
The one resource you can count on is the honest opinion of an experienced legal professional. A California Truck Accident Lawyer examines every detail of your case to determine what your suffering and your injury are worth. Your attorney then fights to make sure you receive the maximum compensation available.
Truck Accident Liability and Settlement Amounts
One thing benefiting the victims of truck accidents is that there is sometimes more than one insurance company involved in a claim for damages.
Accident claims might be directed at careless truck drivers who work for themselves. Their commercial auto insurance policies would be called upon, but these policies may have very low caps on the support you can earn. Once a limit is reached you’ll have to pay the remaining bills yourself or file a claim against another party.
The truck driver’s employer could also provide accident liability coverage for its drivers. A trucking company may fully cover a driver and have much higher limits for victims to draw from. A company or corporation could also face liability if they’ve hired an unsafe driver or failed to provide adequate safety training for employees. A trucking business might have also failed to maintain their trucks to meet safety standards.
A truck manufacturer could also be part of an insurance claim. If a truck part malfunctions or fails and causes an accident, the company that designs and builds the truck would be liable. A recall on a truck or part might also force the manufacturer to provide you or a loved one with support.
Other Factors that Determine the Value of Your Truck Accident Settlement
It is possible to look at the details that commonly factor into semi-truck accident cases to get an idea of what determines the amount you’ll see on an insurance settlement check.
These are just a few of those important factors that determine what you and your family receive in an accident claim:
- The severity of your injury and the length of recovery. Accidents involving large trucks more commonly cause major injuries. The financial toll for recoveries from major injuries can easily exceed $100,000.
- The cost of medical care. You can easily total the cost of an emergency room visit and hospital bills you already have in hand. When you need intensive care and surgeries these totals multiply quickly. When a permanent disability is suffered, the cost of support needed over a lifetime must be estimated.
- Physical pain and the emotional trauma stemming from a truck accident aren’t as easily added up but are just as damaging to patients. Any insurance settlement check must consider the pain you endure and the mental challenges you face in recovery. You may suffer a loss of enjoyment of life and major disruptions to your family relationships. These damages should all increase the compensation you receive.
- The skill of your personal injury lawyer. All injured victims should receive the full support of insurance companies in every case. Sadly, that’s not how insurance companies operate. They will shortchange victims of the compensation they need, especially when victims don’t have a legal representative protecting their interests. Insurance adjusters will lay blame at your feet and question the severity of your injury if it will save their companies money. Large trucking companies could also have a team of lawyers on standby, all ready to challenge your claim and poke holes in your request for basic support. Having a California truck accident lawyer to combat their efforts is vital to the success of your case. Your attorney knows when a settlement offer is well below what you need and fights for the maximum compensation available.
Contact a Semi-Truck Accident Lawyer Serving California Victims
After you or a loved one suffers a serious injury due to a truck driver’s carelessness, don’t let an insurance company decide how much you should receive in a settlement. A trucking company can quickly write you a settlement check that may not even cover half of your bills and hardships.
Discuss your case with a skilled California Truck Accident Attorney like Martin Gasparian at Maison Law. You’ll have a much better understanding of all the benefits available to you and how much your injury may be worth.
Mr. Gasparian offers a free, confidential case evaluation to victims and their families. If you decide Mr. Gasparian is the right lawyer for your case, you won’t owe any money now. He doesn’t receive an attorney fee unless he secures a settlement or verdict on your behalf.
