Proficient Truck Accident Attorneys in Sacramento, CA
A trucking accident can cause catastrophic injuries in the blink of an eye. Without the help of a proper legal counsel, victims of truck crashes may not receive the compensation they deserve. If you or a family member suffered serious injuries from an accident involving a large truck, a Sacramento truck accident attorney at the law offices of Walkup, Melodia, Kelly, and Schoenberger can help.
Contact our Sacramento accident law firm to schedule a free case evaluation and receive legal advice today. We have experience handling truck accident cases across Northern California. Let us hold the negligent parties accountable and help you receive fair compensation for your material and immaterial losses.
Why Choose Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger for a Truck Accident Claim?
- Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger has an extensive track record of success securing significant multimillion-dollar settlements for individuals in Sacramento and throughout California.
- Our team has been influential in the development of personal injury law in California over the last six decades.
- When we get involved with your case, we take over and immediately begin the process of investigation and evidence collection, and we have the resources necessary to see your case all the way through to the end.
Do You Need a Sacramento Truck Accident Lawyer?
Filing a personal injury claim against commercial trucking companies and their insurance companies cases are very hard for individuals to take on by themselves. Unfortunately, crash victims are often left going up against well-funded trucking companies, their insurance carriers, and their legal teams. These are the parties have an unfair advantage, but their advantage disappears when you work with a trusted Sacramento truck accident lawyer. A personal injury attorney in Sacramento will provide the experience needed to understand how to successfully resolve these cases. Your legal team will have the resources to take on truck companies and their aggressive insurance carriers.
One of the most crucial aspects of a truck accident case is determining liability. In these accidents, there may be multiple parties that can be held liable. By conducting extensive investigations, your attorney will work to determine who is liable for the incident.
Your attorney will also handle complex negotiations with all defendants in the case, conduct an investigation on your behalf, and ensure that all important dates and deadlines are met.
Common Injuries in a Truck Crash
Unfortunately, large commercial trucks often result in severe injuries for those inside traditional passenger cars in the Sacramento area. These vehicles can weigh tens of thousands of pounds, and they are much larger than typical vehicles. When a crash occurs, it is not uncommon for those inside smaller vehicles to sustain a range of injuries, including the following:
- Broken bones
- Severe lacerations or puncture wounds
- Crush injuries
- Amputations
- Traumatic brain injuries
- Concussions
- Spinal cord trauma
- Whiplash
- Other severe neck or back injury
- Significant blood loss
- Scarring and disfigurement
- Internal organ damage
- Internal bleeding
In addition to these visible and acute traumatic injuries, our truck accident lawyers in Sacramento also recognize that crash victims can sustain significant emotional and psychological trauma. These incidents and subsequent injuries can be devastating and lead to feelings of stress, anxiety, and even post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Our goal is to make sure that we recover compensation for all of our clients’ injuries, including invisible traumatic injuries and any unseen injuries.
Where are Truck Accidents the Most Common in Sacramento County?
As the capital of California, Sacramento is a bustling city that’s home to the intersection of multiple major state and interstate highways. Interstate 80 is one of the longest routes in the country, connecting Sacramento to San Francisco and Reno, Denver, Salt Lake, and the East Coast. Interstate 80 is the main roadway for long-haul and short-haul truckers. Other major highways that cross Sacramento in connection with trucking routes across the country include:
- Interstate 5 connects truckers to destinations from Los Angeles through the Central Valley, to Sacramento, Reading, Red Bluff, Portland and Seattle
- Highway 99, which travels down the center of the state, and has heavy truck traffic, connects Southern California with the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys
- S. Highway 50, which heads to South Lake Tahoe, and goes all the way to Ocean City, MD
- Business 80, which runs through the city and reconnects to the interstate on the western border.
Independent truck drivers and large trucking companies use all of California’s major freeways and state highways including I-80, I-50, Highway 99, and Interstate 5 to transport goods throughout the entire country. However, since California transports 88% of its total manufactured tonnage within the state, many owner-operators and other drivers often rely on smaller, statewide routes and freeways for travel. The high speeds of these roadways, coupled with a truck’s sheer size and weight, contributes to literally hundreds of injury-producing truck versus automobile accidents each year.
California Trucking and Tonnage Limits
California allows big rigs with a gross weight of 80,000 pounds on many of the Sacramento Valley area roadways. The Surface Transportation Assistance Act dictates the largest trucks that can be in operation in California. Under these rules, a semi-trailer can be up to 53 feet long, but there is no overall length limit.
Consider that the average passenger vehicle weighs 4,000 pounds, and you can see why large truck crashes can be so devastating for everyone on the roadway.
Most Common Causes of Sacramento Truck Accidents
According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), there were approximately 148,000 people injured as a result of large truck accidents during the latest reporting year in the United States. These crashes also resulted in 4,761 fatalities. Some of the most common causes of these accidents, as reported by the FMCSA and the California Highway Patrol, include:
1) Driver Fatigue
Drivers are required to follow strict FMCSA regulations concerning how many consecutive hours they can operate during a workday and workweek. Failing to follow these mandatory rules can result in driver fatigue, leading to serious crashes on the roadway. In many cases, truck companies pressure drivers to meet set deadlines, and this may conflict with FMCSA regulations. Distracted driving, speeding, inattention, driving outside of permitted hours, driving without adequate sleep, and driving while under the influence of drugs and alcohol are among some causes.
2) Alcohol and Drug Use
Truck drivers should never operate their vehicles while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Impaired driving is a leading cause of traffic fatalities in the state of California. Whether a driver uses drugs or alcohol at rest stops or while driving, they place other people’s lives in danger. Many drivers use prescription drugs that can affect their driving abilities.
3) Poor Driver Training
Truck drivers should all have their commercial driver’s licenses and undergo a certain threshold of training hours before they are allowed to operate a commercial vehicle. Not all drivers adhere to these guidelines, and not all trucking companies ensure their drivers are properly trained.
4) Truck Maintenance Problems
Truck owners and companies are required by FMCSA regulations to regularly inspect and maintain all trucks in their fleet. These vehicles must be in top condition before they are allowed to hit the road. Poorly maintained trucks can fail while on the roadway and cause serious harm. Poor tires (or tire blowouts), faulty brakes, vehicles out of adjustment and out of specifications, as the result of a failure to undertake required maintenance, are a frequent cause of major truck related injury collisions.
5) Distracted Drivers
Distracted driving is a major problem for everyone on the roadway. Truck drivers must not operate large vehicles while distracted by their phones or any other devices. Unfortunately, many truck drivers check and send text messages, make phone calls, browse social media, and even watch movies while they are operating their vehicles. Any time a truck driver takes their eyes off the roadway, they are putting other people’s lives in danger.
6) Speeding
Truck drivers have an obligation to follow all traffic laws, including speed limits (which are often different for large trucks). However, there are times when truck drivers are pressured to meet delivery deadlines, and they make the choice to travel at unsafe speeds. At increased speeds, truck drivers have less time to react to the conditions on the roadway around them.
7) Improper Loading
Overloading long and short-haul trucks, or loading rigs in a way which causes them to be out of balance and difficult to steer or control regularly produces major collisions and rollovers. Due to their sheer weight and size, loaders of commercial motor vehicles must exercise diligence and distribute the weight of the load properly. Overloaded trucks can cause a driver to lose control of a vehicle very easily.
8) External Conditions
In some cases, big rig crashes are caused by factors outside of the drivers’ control. Bad weather or dangerous road conditions, for example, can lead to a serious accident. This is where proper training can come in to help prevent driver error.
How Do You Determine Liability in a Sacramento Truck Accident?
Determining liability in a truck crash can be incredibly difficult. As opposed to a traditional passenger vehicle crash, incidents involving large trucks can involve many different parties. Your Sacramento truck accident lawyer will work to determine whether any of the following parties is liable:
- Truck driver’s employer
- Truck’s owner
- Truck’s manufacturer
- Company which loaded cargo onto the truck
- Freight forwarding companies
- The owner of the cab or the trailer
- The entity that leased the truck
- Repair shop that works on the truck
- Company that manufactured the trailer
- Company that leased the trailer
Determining who is liable will involve considerable investigation on the part of your attorney. Even if the truck driver appears to be completely at fault, that does not absolve any of the other parties from liability. For example, if a trucking company allows an undertrained driver to operate their vehicle, then the company could be held liable. Your lawyer will obtain:
- All accident reports
- Video and photo evidence from the scene
- Eyewitness statements
- Company maintenance and training logs
- Driver hours of service logs
- And more
Your attorney is looking for negligence. That could be negligence on the part of any of the parties listed above. Each of these parties have their own insurance policies that could be responsible for providing compensation for your injuries. Our legal team can hold the trucking company, their insurance company, and the trucking industry as a whole accountable for your losses.
California’s Comparative Negligence Laws
California operates on a “pure comparative negligence” basis. This means that the amount of money you receive can be reduced if it is determined that you were responsible for part of the incident that caused your injuries. For example, if you are awarded $100,000 by a jury in damages for your injuries, but the jury determines that you were 10% at fault for the crash, you would receive $90,000 in total damages. Because the other side will likely try to blame you for as much of the accident as possible, it is vital to have an attorney who will work to prove the defendant’s liability.
What is the Statute of Limitations on a Truck Accident in California?
Every state applies a certain statute of limitations for personal injury cases. There are time limits in which a case must be filed. In California, the statute of limitations for truck accident injury cases is two years from the date the injury occurred. Failing to file a personal injury lawsuit within the two-year time limit will result in the court dismissing your case.
What Are My Next Steps After a Truck Accident in Sacramento?
Victims of Sacramento area truck accidents often sustain serious, permanently disabling, and life-threatening injuries. The aftermath of an accident can prove devastating – victims often are disabled for life, or if they are able to return to work, miss long periods of work, or may be unable to return to their profession at all. The financial consequences of medical bills and lost wages take their toll and cause families to lose homes, property, and savings.
Contact a Sacramento Truck Accident Attorney Today
If you or a loved one recently suffered injuries in a big rig accident, your next steps will have a huge impact on your future. Contact the Sacramento truck accident attorneys at Walkup Melodia, Kelly, and Schoenberger to schedule a free initial consultation with our firm. We hold trucking companies accountable and demand maximum compensation for the full extent of your injuries, pain, and suffering. Our attorneys have extensive resources that we can use to fully investigate your claim and help you recover maximum compensation for your losses. Call us to review your legal options during a free consultation today.
