No matter how good of a driver you are or how cautious you are on the open road – you may be struck by a truck (aka, semi, or semi-tractor trailer). Truck drivers are just like every other driver on the road. However, because truck drivers are responsible for extremely heavy loads and heavy vehicles, they are required to follow special rules in order to avoid causing collisions.
The lawyers at East Valley Injury Law have decades of experience fighting trucking insurance companies. We have recovered millions of dollars for our clients against trucking companies. We know the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations which truckers must follow.
If you’ve been injured because you were hit by a truck/semi/tractor-trailer unit, call the experienced trucking injury attorneys at East Valley Injury Law.
Example of East Valley Injury Law Recovering Millions in a Wrongful Death Trucking Accident Case.
The driver of a semi-tractor trailer unit based from a large trucking company based out of California brought a heavy load to Arizona. It was dark out, the truck driver was not sure if he was on the correct roadway, and made the grossly negligent decision of attempting to perform a u-turn on a two-lane, 65 mph roadway south of Chandler. Because the roadway was elevated above the shoulders of the road, as the driver made the turn, the semi jackknifed and lost traction with the trailer unit straddling the highway.
Our client’s wife was on her way home from work. She traveled at approximately 65-70 mph. Despite braking appropriately, our client’s wife (and unborn child) were killed when her vehicle went underneath the trailer.
Naturally, the insurance company for the trucking company fought liability. They tried placing blame on the driver, among other tactics. East Valley Injury Law hired both a conspicuity expert and an accident reconstruction expert. With the help of the experts East Valley Injury Law was able to prove the reflective lights on the side of the trailer appeared to our client’s wife as lights from a distant city. Also, we were able to prove our client’s wife engaged her brakes at the proper time.
The lead attorney subpoenaed records from the trucking company, traveled to Fresno, California to take the deposition testimony of company officials, as well as to Bakersfield, California to take the deposition of the driver.
East Valley Injury Law was able to bring justice to our client by forcing the trucking company’s insurance company to pay its full liability policy limit (in the millions).
Another Example of Going the Extra Mile to Recover Against a Trucking Company
Many trucking companies violate the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations by requiring their drivers to be on the road “over hours”. This is especially true when the trucking company is barely making a profit or when it is a mom-n-pop company.
One East Valley Injury Law client was rear-ended by a semi while she was stopped at a red light. East Valley Injury Law subpoenaed the driving logs from the driver of the truck. We also hired a trucking expert who reviewed the logs and determined the driver was over hours. We sensed this was a pattern of the drivers who worked for this company. So, we subpoenaed a volume of records from the company. The company refused to provide the records but indicated we could go to Knoxville, TN, and go through their records if we wanted them that badly.
Our East Valley Injury Law attorney traveled with our trucking expert to Knoxville. The attorney crawled over boxes inside a 5th-wheel (this is where they kept their company records) and after hours of mining the records, hit gold. We found a list of former drivers and their phone numbers.
Upon return to Arizona, we called the former drivers and found a number of them willing to testify that the owner of the company told them, “If you won’t drive over hours, I will fire you and hire someone who will.”
With the threat of a punitive damages award, the company caved and paid a significant amount of money to our client.
The East Valley Injury Law Approach
If you or a loved one has been injured in a semi-truck accident in Arizona, the most important thing for you to understand is that help is closer than you think. At East Valley Injury Law, our team has years of experience working on these types of cases and we’ll do whatever it takes to see yours through to a favorable conclusion.
