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Edelman & Thompson partner, James Thompson, explains crucial differences between heavy truck collisions and other motor vehicle accidents. In heavy truck collision cases, quick retention of an attorney is pivotal to results.
Are collisions involving heavy trucks the same as other vehicle collisions?
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: KCTV5 Reporter/Anchor Jiani Navarro: Now let’s switch gears for some Better Expert help. You have questions, they have answers.
Today’s question for Kansas City’s personal injury lawyers, Edelman & Thompson. Are collisions involving heavy trucks basically the same as other vehicle collisions?
Kansas City Personal Injury Attorney James Thompson: Absolutely not. First, given the weight of trucks, the magnitude of the collision is often much worse. But aside from that obvious difference, heavy truck accidents require immediate and sometimes complex investigation.
Edelman & Thompson, for example, almost always gets a full accident reconstruction team on the ground in hours if possible, but certainly within days of the accident. Preservation of evidence and any roadway markings is critical. It is also critical to place the trucking company on notice of the need to preserve electronic and paper records. How fast was the truck going?
Did the driver apply braking? Was the driver on the road over the legal number of hours? If you don’t get that information quickly, it can be destroyed, and you may not be able to prove the truck driver did something wrong.
Finally, we like to obtain the engine downloads from the trucks as soon as possible, before they are put back in service. Today’s heavy trucks are usually equipped with accident-avoidance radar, computer modules called engine control modules, forward and sometimes rear-facing video, GPS, and other information that needs to be preserved.
There is probably no type of case where quick retention of an attorney is more important.
In fact, I’ve had many cases in my career where the police report simply got the facts of accident wrong and it was proven by the electronic data on the vehicles involved. So, yes, if you’ve been injured in a heavy truck accident, get a lawyer immediately.
