Atlanta
Truck Accident Lawyer

The Simon Law Firm has offices in Atlanta and throughout Georgia focusing on helping families with serious injuries related to truck and commercial vehicle accidents. We listen to you to make sure we are accomplishing your goals. Over 30% of our cases are commercial truck injuries.

Trucking Accident Lawyers Serving Victims In And Around Atlanta, GA

Trucks and commercial vehicles may be one of the most prevalent means to distribute goods, but they also come with a lot of risk. It is reported that as much as 70% of all freight moved in the United States is done by trucks. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), a division of the United States Department of Transportation, the number of truck-related accidents that occur each year is in the hundreds of thousands. With over 700 accidents every day in America alone- it’s no wonder that trucks generate so many headlines for being unsafe! If you are the victim of a truck or commercial vehicle wreck you, need the experienced legal help of our Atlanta truck accident attorneys to seek justice and explore how you can be fairly compensated.

Truck Accident Claims Are Drastically Different

Trucking accident cases are unique because of the complex web of Federal Regulations governing driver hours and vehicle repair and inspection routines. Additionally, tractor-trailers have complex computer systems tracking throttle and braking systems. All of these need to be downloaded after a crash.

Large trucking companies, whether it be Scheider, Werner, Knight Transportation or UPS have lawyers on 24 call to respond to the scene of a bad accident and to save favorable evidence.

Our Atlanta truck accident attorney is trained by insurance companies to defend trucking companies early in their careers, so they know how this whole system works. The sooner you hire us, the sooner we can start visiting the scene and interviewing witnesses to preserve the evidence that makes the difference. If we take your case, we’ll immediately start investigating the accident, collecting pertinent evidence such as police reports and medical documents, interviewing any witnesses, and filing the proper paperwork.

Let us give you an example; in 2016 a young man called in from Detroit. He had been in a terrible crash as a passenger in a tractor-trailer that crashed in the mountains near Chattanooga. The trucking company denied responsibility and tried to say that the driver only crashed because of the design of the roadway. Our client had over $400,000 in medical bills from several surgeries and the insurance company would not even offer the medical bill totals. We downloaded the ECM on the tractor-trailer and immediately filed suit.

We pulled all of the electronic tracking records including the satellite pings from the Qualcomm unit on the truck and were able to develop evidence that showed that not only was the driver speeding downhill through the mountains but that the safety director got tired of getting automated email warnings about this driver speeding so HE TURNED THEM OFF! This inflammatory evidence completely turned the case around and they ultimately paid over $2,000,000 at a mediation.

Common Causes Of Atlanta Commercial Truck Accidents

The majority of truck drivers are professional, courteous, and careful, but despite this fact, accidents do happen, either by mistake or carelessness. Among the factors that typically contribute to tractor-trailer accidents are:

• Driver fatigue – Drowsy driving is commonplace among long-haul drivers even though there are strict national and intra-company regulations in place, including drive-time limitations and required rest periods.
• Failure to Maintain their Lane – Commercial truck drivers are trained to monitor their blind spots and yet time and again they merge into the same lane as a passenger vehicle, causing serious collisions.
• Inadequate truck maintenance – Defective equipment doubles the chance that a truck will be involved in an accident involving substantial property damage or injury, according to the IIHS. Faulty brakes and steering top the list of defects.
• Distracted drivers – While state and federal entities have become increasingly aware of the dangers of texting and driving and have instituted firm laws and severe consequences for breaking them, it still occurs.
• Impaired driving – Truck drivers are subject to regular drug and alcohol screening, but this does not completely rule out truckers driving while under the influence of either. There is the added possibility that there are other impaired drivers on the road – a bad combination in even the best of circumstances.
• Aggressive drivers – Commercial trucks have slower response times when it comes to trying to correct their own aggressive driving or combat another vehicle’s poor driving practices. This is especially true when braking, returning to their own lane or swerving to avoid a collision with another vehicle or something on the road.

The elements required to prove negligence in trucking accident claims may seem straightforward, but how to substantiate them may be harder than you expect. Identifying the truly responsible parties can be difficult. It could be the driver, the trucking company, a third party who loaded or failed to secure cargo, and even government entities if there were dangerous road conditions that were not identified and the public sufficiently warned.