Columbia Truck Accident Lawyer

If your accident was the fault of the truck driver, trucking company, or another responsible party, you may be eligible for significant financial compensation.

The causes of truck accidents are not always easy to determine. Federal and state regulations are intended to limit the size of commercial trucks and also ensure that drivers and vehicles are at peak performance. Many commercial truck crashes stem from violations of these regulations. Others are caused by driver error, employer negligence, or the negligence of other parties.

If you suffered catastrophic injuries or your loved one was killed in a tractor-trailer accident in Columbia, get legal help as soon as possible.

At Stewart Law Offices, our experienced Columbia truck accident law firm is prepared to assist you throughout your recovery, both in investigating the true cause of the accident, determining who was at fault, and holding the responsible parties accountable.

Who Can I Hold Liable For My Injuries?

Stewart Law Offices represents injured victims of 18-wheelers and other large commercial vehicles. Some of the other parties that could be held liable besides a driver or truck company may include:

A lawyer can investigate your accident, potentially including doing accident reconstruction and extracting evidence from the tractor-trailer’s black box, in order to identify the liable parties.

Types of Columbia Semi-Truck Accidents

Some of the most common accidents include:

Many truck drivers, trucking companies, or their insurers will claim that an injury victim was at fault for their injuries. For this reason, be sure not to speak with anyone about the accident until you have legal representation. Even if you know you were not at fault, they may be able to trick you into making statements that damage your ability to bring a successful claim.

Causes of Tractor-Trailer Accidents in Columbia

Some of the most common causes of commercial truck accidents include:

How Often Do They Happen?

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety Highway Data Loss Institute (IIHS HDLI) reported that 3,986 people died in large truck crashes in a single recent year.

2,642 were passenger vehicle occupants	660 were large truck occupants	637 were motorcyclists, bicyclists, or pedestrians

IIHS HDLI reported that 1,277 deaths occurred on interstates and freeways, 2,373 occurred on other major roads, 281 occurred on minor roads, and 55 were unknown.

According to the Traffic Collision Fact Book from the South Carolina Department of Public Safety, there were 76 fatalities resulting from collisions involving truck tractors and 30 involving other trucks in one year.

Truck tractors were involved in 1,179 injury collisions and 3,874 property damage only (PDO) collisions while other trucks were involved in 541 injury collisions and 1,894 PDO collisions.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) reported that 104 people were killed in 95 fatal crashes involving large trucks in the same year.

According to FMCSA, there were 119,000 injury crashes involving large trucks or buses in 2016, the most of any year in the most recent 20-year period.

Differences Between Auto Accidents and Tractor-Trailer Accidents

The truck driver is often the person most people assume is at fault, and the driver can indeed be liable for damages.

In most cases, though, drivers do not have the personal insurance limits or assets necessary to pay for all the expenses incurred by accident victims.

Other parties, particularly trucking companies, usually have insurance policies with much higher limits. If you can demonstrate that they were responsible for your accident, which they often are in some way, you may be able to secure vastly more money than you would by just pursuing a claim against the driver as an individual.

Trucking companies might be responsible for accidents if they are negligent in hiring and training drivers, force drivers to drive too long without breaks, overload trucks or fail to do adequate maintenance. If the trucker was directly employed by the trucking company, the company could be liable by virtue of the law that holds employers responsible for the negligence of their employees. That may be true even if the trucking company claims the driver was an independent contractor.

Steps to Take After a Truck Accident in Columbia

When you are involved in a crash with a commercial truck, you should seek immediate medical attention. Do not wait for symptoms to appear days or weeks later, as some very serious conditions do not show symptoms at first.

While you are at the scene of the crash, try to collect whatever evidence you can. In most cases, people are able to use the cameras on their cell phones to take pictures. Get photographs of everything involved in the accident, including the vehicles, the drivers, the police, and any possible contributing factors. Look for skid marks, signs, debris, and other evidence. Take pictures from multiple angles and distances. If you are unable to do this because of a need for medical attention, ask a friend or family member to do this for you.

If anybody saw your accident, ask them for their name and phone number. These people could end up being valuable witnesses.

In some cases, trucking companies or their insurers will dispatch agents to crash scenes. The representatives may present victims with paperwork to sign under the guise of being part of the regular process, but such paperwork often contains hidden language restricting the rights of those victims.

Do not speak to anybody about your accident, including friends, family, and especially insurance companies. Make sure you have a lawyer first. Do not wait to contact an attorney after you have been involved in a tractor-trailer accident in Columbia.

Building a Case for Compensation

As soon as you hire Stewart Law Offices, we will immediately begin a diligent independent investigation of the crash. We will not only work to determine the true cause of your accident, but we can also secure important evidence. It is important to contact us as soon as possible so we can investigate your crash scene before important evidence disappears.

An attorney can help collect all of the necessary evidence to prove a truck driver or trucking company’s negligence in court. A victim will generally have to prove all four of the basic elements of a negligence claim in order to recover damages for their tractor-trailer crash:

• Duty of Care — The defendant had a duty to the victim to conduct themselves in a safe and lawful manner.
• Breach of Duty — The defendant breached that duty of care by not conducting themselves in a safe and lawful manner.
• Causation — The defendant’s breach of duty caused the victim’s injuries.
• Damages — The victim’s injuries resulted in damages If a victim proves their case by a preponderance of the evidence, the jury may award them compensatory damages. Compensatory damages are typically some combination of economic damages and non-economic damages.

Economic damages

Econmonic damages are expenses that can be readily calculated and proven, such as:

• Medical expenses
• Lost wages
• Property damage

Noneconomic damages

Noneconomic damages are more subjective but just as real, examples include:

• Pain and suffering
• Emotional distress
• Loss of consortium

In a very limited number of cases, a jury could also award punitive damages. A victim must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the harm was caused by a defendant’s willful, reckless, or wanton conduct. Punitive damages are usually limited to rare cases in which the court wants to punish a defendant for especially egregious misconduct.

How Our Columbia Truck Accident Attorneys Can Help

Stewart Law Offices is ready to be by your side and help you through every step of the process for seeking compensation in your injury case.

Did you sustain serious injuries or was your loved one killed in a tractor-trailer crash in the greater Columbia area? Stewart Law Offices understands the entire lifetime of challenges that truck accident victims may face. Our firm fights to help injured people seek justice. Call us or contact us online now to schedule a free consultation with a Columbia personal injury lawyer.