Semi Truck Accident Attorney

What Is a Semi Truck Accident?

A semi truck accident — also called a commercial truck accident, 18-wheeler crash, or big rig collision — involves a vehicle with a gross vehicle weight of over 10,000 pounds under federal regulations. These vehicles include tractor-trailers, flatbed trucks, tanker trucks, garbage trucks, and delivery vehicles operated by companies like Amazon, FedEx, and UPS.

The physics of these crashes are catastrophic. A fully loaded 18-wheeler can weigh up to 80,000 pounds — twenty times the weight of a standard passenger vehicle. When these vehicles collide, the occupants of smaller cars almost always bear the full brunt of the trauma. Fatality rates in truck-involved crashes are dramatically higher than in passenger-vehicle-only accidents.

Truck Accident Liability

Unlike standard car accident cases, commercial truck accidents involve multiple layers of potential liability that require expert investigation:

• The Truck Driver: Personal negligence including speeding, distracted driving, fatigued driving, or driving under the influence.
• The Trucking Company: Negligent hiring, failure to maintain vehicles, pressuring drivers to violate Hours of Service regulations, or falsifying logbooks.
• The Cargo Loading Company: Improperly secured or overweight cargo that shifts and causes the driver to lose control.
• The Vehicle Manufacturer: Defective brakes, tires, or steering components that contributed to the crash.
• Government Entities: Poorly maintained roads, inadequate signage, or dangerous highway design.

Common Causes of Commercial Truck Accidents

• Driver fatigue — violation of FMCSA Hours of Service (HOS) regulations
• Distracted driving — phone use, dispatching systems inside cab
• Speeding and aggressive driving
• Improper lane changes and wide turns
• Brake failure due to deferred maintenance
• Jackknifing from improper braking technique
• Overloaded or improperly secured cargo
• Tire blowout from worn or underinflated tires
• Driver inexperience or inadequate training
• Drug or alcohol impairment

Average Truck Accident Settlement Amounts

Commercial truck accident settlements are substantially higher than standard car accident claims because of the severity of injuries and the large insurance policies trucking companies are required to carry by law. Average settlements range from $530,000 to over $5 million for serious injury cases. Cases involving wrongful death often result in seven-figure settlements.

Federal law requires trucking companies to carry a minimum of $750,000 in liability insurance — but larger carriers often carry $1 million to $5 million in coverage. Your attorney's job is to identify every layer of coverage and every liable party to maximize your recovery.

How a Truck Accident Attorney Helps

The moment a serious crash occurs, the trucking company's response team — lawyers, investigators, and insurance adjusters — is already mobilizing to minimize their liability. You need an equally aggressive advocate in your corner from day one.

Our attorneys immediately issue spoliation of evidence letters to preserve black box data, driver logbooks, dash cam footage, and maintenance records. We deploy accident reconstruction experts, conduct depositions of company officials, and dig through corporate records to expose a pattern of negligence. We do not settle for pennies on the dollar.