Every day, countless accidents involving large commercial trucks, semis and eighteen-wheelers occur on our roads and highways. Any number of factors may contribute to these accidents, some of them the fault of the truck driver, some the fault of the other driver and some nobody’s fault at all.

On occasion however, the accident is caused by the truck driver. Sometimes truck drivers are so negligent that they break traffic safety laws and cause accidents. One such traffic law that is commonly broken is the mandatory speed limit.

Truck drivers are required to obey the speed limit, therefore, when they violate the speed limit, this act constitutes negligence. If a commercial truck is involved in an accident because the driver was speeding, he will be found negligent. Also, despite obeying the posted speed limit, a truck driver can still be negligent if the he is driving faster than is reasonable under the conditions.

Although within the legal speed limit, a truck driver can be negligent for violating the Basic Speed Law, which requires a truck to drive at a speed reasonable for the conditions. The Basic Speed Law trumps any posted speed limit, so even if the posted limit is 60 miles per hour, a truck driver could be held negligent for driving 60 miles per hour in the middle of a blizzard.

Truck drivers are required at all times to have regard for all actual and potential hazards on the road, therefore, as visibility decreases, the speed at which they can safely operate their truck drops. Similarly, truck drivers must drive at a reasonable speed around corners to avoid causing an accident. Truck drivers have been found negligent in the past for cornering too quickly and overturning their truck, despite driving under the posted speed limit.

Other factors that determine the Basic Speed Law include the weather, road conditions, traffic congestion, the time of day, and the presence of pedestrians. Truck drivers that fail to take into account these factors and drive too fast can be found negligent if they cause an accident, or if their speed prevents them from avoiding an accident. If you’ve been in an accident with a truck that you thought was speeding or traveling too fast for the conditions, contact an attorney. An attorney is crucial because there are a number of legal defenses that a truck driver can raise if you accuse them of speeding, and unless you have experience with commercial trucking law, you will be unable to counter their arguments and you will lose an otherwise simple case.

Every day, large commercial trucks and tractor trailers are involved in accidents on American highways. These accidents cause billions of dollars of damage to property, and result in serious injury or death to other drivers and passengers on the road. People that have been in an accident with a large truck often stand to recover large amounts of money due to the severity of their injuries and the large degree of potential property damage involved. Unfortunately, when people that have been in accidents with commercial trucks try to settle their own claims they find themselves facing off with an enormous, powerful and well-organized industry which can be intimidating and confusing to people.

There are currently 15.5 million trucks on our highways. The trucking industry employs nearly 9 million people. The industry generates somewhere in the neighborhood of 255.5 billion dollars every year. The huge number of trucks and employees and the enormous amount of revenue generated by the trucking industry amount to a very powerful industry with well organized unions.

When people get into accidents with large trucks, they find that the trucking industry has an enormous amount of money to spend in defending themselves. Lawsuits involving the commercial trucking industry differ drastically from normal accidents involving personal injury claims. Often times, individuals attempt to handle their own personal injury claims when they get into accidents with other cars and can be somewhat successful (or at least competent) in settling their claims.

Accidents involving commercial trucks are much different. An attorney with knowledge of the trucking industry can make an immeasurable difference in the success of a lawsuit against a trucking company.

There are many reasons why lawsuits involving the commercial trucking industry are so complicated and why the aid of an experienced attorney can be so valuable. First of all, unlike the private cars and trucks that Americans drive every day, the commercial trucking industry is heavily regulated by local, state and federal governments. Because of all the different laws relating to semis and 18-wheelers, it is very difficult for an individual to know how to recover for their damages and injuries when they’ve been in an accident with a large truck.

The sheer number of regulations affecting the trucking industry creates a tangled web of laws, statutes, regulations and safety requirements that can be a nightmare for a person to try and understand and wade through.

Additionally, and more importantly, it is very difficult for a person to actually know who to sue when they’ve had an accident with a commercial truck. All these laws and regulations mean that commercial trucks are required to carry huge amounts of insurance. However, unlike private citizens that normally just have one insurance company, an accident involving a commercial truck can involve countless insurance companies representing a multitude of people that could be responsible for the accident and liable for a person’s injuries.

In an accident with a large truck it is possible that the driver, his employer, the lessee of the tractor or trailer, the tractor and trailer owner, the supplier that loaded the truck and the government itself that maintains the highways could all potentially be liable for the accident. Each is separately insured, so with the aid of an experienced attorney, there is the possibility for very large settlements in accidents involving commercial trucks.

Other issues in a trucking law injury case: Liability is just one issue in a trucking law case. There are many other factors involved in how much a case is worth.

Most people have heard of the term “statute of limitations,” but not everyone knows what it means. Basically, the statute of limitations is the time period within which a person must file a lawsuit following an injury event. In the case of an accident involving a large commercial truck, there is a set amount of time that a person has to file their lawsuit before they become legally barred from being able to sue.

The reason behind having a statute of limitations is to ensure that the trial or settlement is over within a set reasonable time. If you wait too long before suing, there is a risk that evidence will have been lost or destroyed, that witnesses will have forgotten what they saw, and that you may not be able to locate some of the parties to the lawsuit.

Additionally, the legal system does not view it as fair to require a potential defendant to have to stand trial for something that happened far in the past. While this may not seem terribly fair to a plaintiff that is barred from bringing an otherwise valid lawsuit, the interests of fairness for all parties involved in the lawsuit require us to know the statute of limitations. Otherwise your claim would be barred if its past the period.

In a lawsuit involving an accident with a commercial truck, 18-wheeler or semi, there are a number of different statutes of limitations that apply. In Oregon State the Statute of Limitations is two years; in Washington State the Statute of Limitations is three years. In the event that anyone suffered personal injuries, whether they be a driver or passenger, they have two years from the time of the accident to file a lawsuit. To meet the requirements of the statute of limitations, the lawsuit doesn’t have to be resolved, it merely has to have been filed in court by the last day of the statutory period. If the injuries caused the death of someone in the accident, their personal representative, usually a family member, has three years from the date of the accident to file a lawsuit.

Property damage can involve damage to a person’s car or anything in their car.
On occasion, due to the severity of an accident involving large commercial trucks, one or more of the people involved in the accident are killed. Aside from any possible criminal actions, in the event of a death a person can file a wrongful death suit in civil court. The statute of limitations for a wrongful death suit in Oregon is three years from the date of the injury which caused the death.

Because of the laws about statutes of limitations, it is important to contact an attorney if you’ve been in an accident so that the process of filing a lawsuit can begin as soon as possible. If you’ve been in an accident and have a valid claim, there’s no excuse for missing the statute of limitations, and if you don’t file your lawsuit in time, there’s no way around the Statue of Limitations. Statutes of Limitations vary and may change at the whim of the State Legislature so its best to always check with a lawyer in every case.