If you were injured in a truck accident, you may be entitled to compensation for all costs and damages linked to the crash, including lost wages and work benefits.
Calculating and collecting your damages requires evidence and successful filing and negotiation of a claim with the trucking company’s insurance company. Doing this without a Gwinnett County truck accident lawyer while trying to recover from your injuries can be difficult and may lead to you receiving less than you deserve.
An experienced Gwinnett County personal injury lawyer from Rafi, Brown, and Stokes is standing by to provide a risk-free consultation on your case. Read on to learn more about truck accidents and how an attorney can help you recover the compensation you deserve.
Did You Know Semi-Trucks Can Weigh Up To 80,000 Pounds?
Large trucks and buses are heavier and operate at a greater height than passenger vehicles.
The United States Department of Transportation reported 5,237 fatal crashes involving large trucks and buses in 2019, in addition to 121,000 crashes that caused injury involving large trucks and buses.
The number of accidents involving large trucks has been steadily rising as the volume of truck commerce will not be going down any time soon. As America has turned away from the shopping mall in favor of at-home delivery, more and more trucks will be clogging the roads.
Because of the greater height and weight of large trucks, the occupants of traditional passenger vehicles like cars, minivans, and SUVs are significantly more likely to experience serious injury or even death as a result of an accident with a large truck.
Due to the greater danger associated with truck accidents, large truck drivers must obtain commercial licenses and exercise extra caution when on the road.
What Is The Truck’s “Black Box,” And What Does It Track?
Truck drivers’ employers are concerned, first and foremost, with their productivity level. To ensure that truck drivers stay on track, do not take lengthy breaks, and hit their required delivery times, employers track drivers using various technologies, including a “black box.”
The “black box” is a technology trucking companies use to track speed, distance traveled, driving frequency, and more. Black boxes may be installed as a physical component in the truck or downloaded on a mobile device.
The trucking company’s tracking data could be valuable evidence in your case. Driver fatigue or drowsy driving is a common cause of truck accidents. When truck drivers do not have adequate time off between their shifts or are not allowed to take mandated breaks to rest while driving, they are at a high risk of causing an accident.
Your experienced Gwinnett County truck accident lawyer from Rafi, Brown, and Stokes will use legal instruments like requests for production and depositions to collect the evidence you need to win your claim.
What Are Common Truck Accident Injuries?
Due to the significant size and weight of trucks, severe injuries or death are common. If you have lost a loved one to a truck accident or 18-wheeler crash, you could be entitled to bring a claim on their behalf through a wrongful death suit.
The surviving family of a person lost in an accident can bring this kind of lawsuit. It includes financial compensation for losing their emotional and financial contribution to your household.
If you or a loved one has experienced the following injuries, with the help of an experienced Gwinnett County car accident lawyer, you could bring a claim to collect all related damages.
Whiplash And Other Neck Injuries
Whiplash is a common injury in truck accidents. It’s caused by rapid back-and-forth movement of the neck due to the force of the truck hitting your vehicle. Being hit from any angle can cause whiplash, which could lead to complications and more serious conditions if left untreated.
Many other neck injuries are common in truck accidents, including sprains, strains, and pinched nerves.
Back And Spine Injuries
It’s very common for people involved in truck crashes to suffer herniated (bulging) discs, degenerative spinal disorders, including spinal stenosis, and even lumbar or thoracic spine fractures.
Back and spine injuries often cause excruciating pain and can even lead to more severe complications of the spine. Back and spine injuries can be costly to treat.
Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
If your head experienced a bump, jolt, or penetrating wound, you may have sustained a traumatic brain injury or TBI.
When your head is bumped or jolted on the outside, like when your head hits the steering wheel or window, or if you experience whiplash in an accident, the soft tissues of your brain can be damaged. When the soft tissues are damaged, temporary or permanent chemical changes can happen in your brain.
Brain injuries may require tens of thousands of dollars in medical expenses, including surgeries, medications, treatment, and rehabilitation. You can only collect on these future costs if you have expert opinions to prove them now.
Medical experts measure the costs associated with the injury, and then an occupational expert measures the long-term impact on your earnings that your injuries will cause. Your Gwinnett truck accident lawyer will help you schedule these appointments and then put the evidence to work in support of your case.
Spinal Cord Injury (SCI)
Your spinal cord is the trunk of the many branches of your nervous system, which extends out of your brain and controls all of your bodily functions.
When your spinal cord is injured just below your brain, you could experience total paralysis. If your spinal cord is injured below your arms but above your waist, you could experience partial paralysis.
Injuries to the spinal cord can lead to partial or complete disability for the remainder of your life. This can entail huge costs and keep you from returning to work to support yourself and your family.
When the accident that led to your injuries was caused by the truck driver or a vehicle malfunction, you will be entitled to compensation for these costs.
Burn Injuries
Truck accidents can lead to a variety of internal injuries like spinal cord injury or TBI, as well as severe burns. Still, they can also lead to superficial injuries like mild to moderate burns.
Burns are classified in degrees, with each degree essentially meaning that another layer of your skin or tissue was damaged by the burn.
Mild burns are like sunburns; they go away in a week or so and cause no damage. Moderate burns go through the first few layers of skin and can require skin grafting, which can lead to permanent scarring. More severe burns require serious medical care and plastic surgery.
When your ability to live the same life as before is changed by an injury, including through scarring and disfigurement, you are entitled to compensation.
Broken Bones
Broken and fractured bones are common in truck crashes as the steel and metal chassis of motor vehicles will win when pressed against human flesh and bone.
These injuries can require costly surgeries and rehabilitation, so collecting evidence to prove these damages is important. Otherwise, your settlement could leave you footing the bill.
Amputation
The loss of limbs can lead to permanent disability and impact your ability to work. When this happens, work with an experienced personal injury attorney with a truck accident focus to ensure your costs are fully covered.
Amputation, like scarring and disfigurement, can cause more than superficial damage. When you experience mental anguish and related pain and suffering due to an injury, you can also collect damages. Changes in your quality of life are recognized by the court, and a financial amount will be assigned to them.
Determining this amount can be difficult, but an experienced truck accident lawyer from Rafi, Brown, and Stokes knows the outcome of similar cases and how to measure and incorporate the damages into your claim.
The cost of psychological care to adapt to a changed body after an accident can be significant, as well as the cost of any related medications. You can only collect damages that you can prove with evidence. To establish these kinds of damages, opinions and estimates from experts in their field are essential.
What Are The Common Causes of Truck Accidents In Gwinnett County?
You will be entitled to compensation for your costs and damages from the truck accident when the accident was caused by someone or something else.
The cause will usually be the truck driver and sometimes the truck and its components. Your experienced Gwinnett County truck accident lawyer from Rafi, Brown, and Stokes will collect evidence on the accident through various methods and legal instruments to support your case.
Evidence about the following common causes will be especially focused upon so that you can recover your compensation.
Drowsy Driving
Drowsy driving, also known as fatigued driving, is when a driver gets behind the wheel without adequate rest beforehand. Common reasons drivers are drowsy include a lack of sleep, too much work without enough time off between shifts, or even personal decisions like staying up late to study, enjoy a baseball game, or even have a few beers.
When a driver is drowsy, they cannot safely react to changes in road conditions and hazards on the roads and will be liable for any accidents they cause.
Evidence to prove this includes the tracking data used by the trucking company to ensure their employees are producing at their required levels. Your Gwinnett County truck accident lawyer will compel the production of this evidence to prove your case.
Distracted Driving
Distracted driving includes talking while driving, texting while driving, talking with passengers while driving, fiddling with the radio, and other activities. For example, when a driver is texting while driving, they are manually impaired as their hands are on the phone, not the wheel, their eyes are on the phone, not the road, and their mind is on the text, not their driving.
Drivers have a responsibility to be safe on the roads, which includes following all road rules. They will be liable for accidents caused by their unsafe behaviors.
Governor Nathan Deal signed the Hands-Free Georgia Act into law in 2018. Under the Act, it is illegal for motorists to hold their phones while they are driving to read or text.
How do you know if the other driver was distracted in the moments before your accident? Through requests for production and other legal instruments, your attorney will collect the evidence you need to prove your case.
Drunk Or Drugged Driving
All drunk driving accidents are preventable. Driving while impaired under the influence of drugs and alcohol is illegal, and when drivers break the rules of the road and cause an accident, they will be liable for the damages caused.
Georgia takes intoxicated driving seriously, and under Georgia impaired driving laws, a driver may face up to a year in jail, fines up to $1,000, and 40 hours of community service for even their first offense.
In any accident, it is advised that you call the police to report to the scene, even if no one seems injured. The police will check on the drivers’ sobriety, assist in the exchange of insurance and contact information, create a report of the incident, and collect witnesses’ contact information.
Some drivers may have disciplinary records for intoxicated driving, or they may have criminal convictions for driving under the influence. Your experienced Gwinnett County truck accident lawyer will collect evidence to determine the practices of the truck driver who hit you.
A habit of engaging in intoxicated driving can be used in court to prove a pattern of behavior consistent with what caused your accident. This might sound complex, but it is why working with a lawyer helps you make the most of your case.
Don’t Let the Trucker’s Insurance Company Cheat You Out Of What You Deserve
It’s important to understand that the insurance company does not work for you. They don’t even work for the trucking company paying them. Insurance companies work for profit. Like any for-profit company, the insurance company will do whatever it can to reduce costs, and the main cost to the insurance company is payments made to injured persons like yourself.
To maximize profits, insurance companies will deny whatever claims they can and pay as little as possible on those claims that are paid out. To ensure that you collect as little as possible, full-time teams of claim adjusters and attorneys will work against you at the insurance company.
If your claim does not have sufficient evidence to accurately measure and completely prove your damages, you will not collect what you deserve.
One of the main benefits of working with a Gwinnett truck accident lawyer from Rafi, Brown, and Stokes is the fact that you won’t have to deal with the insurance company. Recovering from your injuries is hard enough. Learning how to collect evidence that would be respected in court, then using that evidence to negotiate a settlement from the insurance company can be nearly impossible.
Were You Hurt In A Truck Accident? Rafi, Brown, and Stokes Is Here To Help.
Working with an experienced Gwinnett County truck accident lawyer from The Rafi, Brown, and Stokes will ensure that you accurately and completely calculate your damages and collect them from the insurance company.
With us on your side, you can step back and focus on recovering from your injuries while we focus on maximizing your compensation. Your initial consultation is free, and you’ll pay nothing up front. You’ll also pay nothing out of pocket, as we take cases on contingency. This means we only get paid if we win your case out of a portion of the earnings we’ll agree upon before getting started.
Call Rafi, Brown, and Stokes at (404) 800-9933 to explore options following your Gwinnett truck accident.
