Proving Negligence in a Truck Accident
Evidence is crucial in proving negligence and determining the cause of a trucking accident so you can recover compensation for your injuries. An experienced truck accident attorney from Lawrence & Associates Accident and Injury Lawyers, LLC, will gather all available evidence to build the strongest possible case on your behalf.
Evidence to Help Prove Negligence in a Truck Accident
The following types of evidence are essential for proving your claims after a truck accident. They will help show fault, the severity of your injuries, and your losses.
Police and Accident Reports
A police report will be generated by the law enforcement agency that responded to your accident, such as the Ohio State Highway Patrol or Kentucky State Police. It will contain valuable information that can lead to various sources of evidence. The police report will include the following:
- The date, time, and location of the accident
- All parties involved in the accident
- All contact information for the involved parties
- Witness statements and information
- Traffic violations
- Crash diagrams
Black Box Data
Most commercial trucks are equipped with an electronic logging device, commonly referred to as a black box, that records the vehicle’s operational data. These records show the vehicle’s speed, brake usage, lane changes, and hours of operation leading up to the crash. For example, if a truck driver told police they were driving below the speed limit when the accident occurred, the data may show otherwise.
Driver Logs and Employment Records
Truck drivers and their companies are required to log their hours on the road, when they’re off, and when they take breaks to prevent fatigue. These logs can reveal how long the driver was on the road before the accident and whether they were following federal regulations for hours of service, or if the log matches the truck’s black box data.
A trucking company’s employment records will indicate whether they have properly trained their drivers and if the drivers have a history of traffic violations.
Inspection and Maintenance Records
Trucks and trucking companies must adhere to strict requirements for vehicle inspections and maintenance, which need to be thoroughly documented. These records can serve as evidence if they reveal that a mechanical problem was ignored or if inspections were missed. Maintenance records also may indicate whether a maintenance failure contributed to the accident.
Dashcam, Surveillance, and Traffic Camera Footage
Many truck drivers use dash cameras that can provide footage showing exactly what caused the accident. If a crash happened near a business with surveillance cameras or at a location with a traffic camera, the footage could also reveal what happened.
Any photos or videos of your vehicle, the surrounding area, and the truck after the accident are valuable evidence. You should take pictures of any visible damage to your car, the location where the accident occurred, nearby traffic signs, road conditions, weather, and your injuries.
Eyewitness Statements
Witness statements provide an unbiased account of what happened during the accident, and can be used to prove your claims. Witnesses could be a bystander, a passenger, or another driver who stopped to help after the crash.
Witness statements can provide information like the following:
- Driving behavior: Was the truck speeding? Did it swerve or brake suddenly?
- Road conditions: Did traffic or debris in the road contribute to the crash?
- Events leading to the collision: Did the truck suddenly change lanes without a turn signal, or did a tire fail?
Medical Records
After a truck accident, seek medical care immediately and keep detailed records of all treatments. Before leaving a doctor’s office or emergency room, always request a copy of your paperwork. Providing proof of your injuries is crucial to establishing negligence, and your medical records, doctor’s notes, appointment history, and bills will help demonstrate the full extent of your injuries.
Expert Testimony
Experts will examine the details of your accident and provide testimony for your case.
- Economic specialists can testify about financial losses or lost wages you experienced from the accident.
- Medical experts can connect your injuries to the accident, explain your conditions and the treatment you’ve received, and how your injuries will impact you in the long run.
- Accident reconstructionists can use evidence such as skid marks and vehicle damage to reconstruct the crash, explain how it occurred, and determine who is at fault.
Act Fast to Protect and Preserve Evidence
When a truck is involved in an accident, its company will typically have a legal team ready to defend and protect it. They will be prepared to act quickly and work to minimize liability.
Contacting a truck accident attorney soon after your accident will help ensure that evidence is being collected. Your attorney will also handle all communications with insurance companies and advocate for fair compensation on your behalf.
An attorney can further assist you by sending a spoliation letter, a common practice in personal injury cases that instructs the defendant to preserve evidence. This letter requires that evidence not be destroyed, including black box data, driver logs, and vehicle maintenance history. A spoliation letter will prevent a trucking company from destroying any evidence that could be related to your accident.
Besides consulting a lawyer, the most crucial step is to collect and preserve as much evidence as possible as quickly as you can.
How a Truck Accident Lawyer Builds a Strong Negligence Case
Working with an attorney after a truck accident will give you much-needed peace of mind and alleviate the pressure of pursuing your claims alone. Lawrence & Associates Accident and Injury Lawyers, LLC, will manage everything, including investigating the accident scene, securing technical data from the trucking company, speaking with witnesses, and working with experts.
Your attorney has the connections to recover all available evidence, including hidden evidence such as a driver’s history through internal trucking company records that may be hard to secure on your own. They will also be able to hire accident reconstructionists to support your case.
Proving Negligence Matters
Proving negligence is crucial to recovering compensation after an accident. To prove negligence, you must show:
- Duty of care: The driver or truck company had a duty to drive safely and responsibly.
- Breach of duty: This duty was violated through careless behavior.
- Causation: This negligent behavior directly caused the accident.
- Damages: The accident caused you harm and loss.
For example, a victim could argue that a semi-truck driver should have rested more often and point to black box data showing that they were driving beyond their maximum allowed hours on the road. The black box data also could indicate that the truck swerved before the collision, likely due to driver fatigue, and that action caused the accident, which resulted in a traumatic brain injury.
Under both Ohio’s and Kentucky’s statutes of limitations, you have two years from the accident date to file suit.
Ohio operates under an at-fault system, meaning the party that causes the accident is liable for paying damages. Meanwhile, under the state’s comparative negligence rule, those partially responsible for an accident can still recover compensation if they are not more than 50% responsible. Their damages will be reduced by their share of fault, and they cannot recover any damages if they are found to be more than 50% responsible for the collision.
Kentucky is a no-fault state unless drivers opt out of the system. Thus, drivers must generally first turn to their own insurance coverage for compensation for damages from a car accident, regardless of who is at fault for the accident. However, you might be eligible to file a claim against the at-fault party if your injuries meet specific thresholds. These include incurring more than $1,000 in medical bills, fracturing a weight-bearing bone, suffering a compound fracture, sustaining a permanent injury or disfigurement, or permanently losing a bodily function.
Even if you are partly responsible for a collision, Kentucky’s pure comparative negligence rule may still allow you to recover damages. However, your compensation will be reduced in proportion to your share of fault. You can recover compensation as long as you are not entirely responsible for an accident, but your level of fault reduces your damages.
Legal Help is Available After a Truck Accident in Kentucky or Ohio
Our team has years of experience helping truck accident victims prove negligence against liable parties and recover compensation for their injuries, with the successful results to show it. Commercial truck accidents can leave you grappling with extreme physical injuries, property damage, and mounting bills that make fighting a legal battle alone all the more daunting. Let us do the fighting for you instead.
At Lawrence & Associates Accident and Injury Lawyers, LLC, we understand the challenges you’re facing, and we’re here to protect your rights every step of the way. Our experienced Cincinnati & Northern Kentucky personal injury attorneys can guide you on what to do—and what to avoid—so you don’t unintentionally harm your case.
Let us fight for the compensation you deserve while you focus on healing. Call our Ohio office at (513) 951-6723 or our Kentucky office at (859) 251-3045 or contact us online today for a free, confidential consultation.
