The News Tribune of North Central Illinois recently reported about a multi-car collision that occurred on I-80. The crash took place this past Tuesday, August 10, 2010 at approximately 2:30 p.m. It occurred just one and a half miles east of Utica.
As a Missouri truck accident lawyer, one of the first things I do when I am retained on a semi truck accident injury case, is to send out a preservation of evidence letter. Tractor trailer accident cases are much different that a car accident case. In fact, not only do most individuals not realize this, but most attorneys fail to even realize this if they do not specialize in tractor trailer cases. Although the preservation of evidence letter can be used in any type of case, it is most prevalent in eighteen wheeler accident injury cases. This is because the Federal Government has enacted the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, which governs almost every aspect of the truck company and the truck driver’s operations. One of these aspects is that it requires them to keep an enormous amount of paperwork. However, there are time limits on how long they are required to keep this paperwork. In fact it is common for truck companies to flag files where their truck driver has been involved in a bad semi truck crash. If they have not received any letter requesting that they preserve the evidence, they will destroy it at their soonest availability. Generally, these time limits expire within six to twelve months.
I-70 Semi-Crash Involving 3 Trucks – A Legal Analysis
By · CommentsOn June 7, 2010, a very serious wreck occurred involving three tractor-trailer semi trucks. Involved in the crash were Randall Huff of London, Kentucky, Rodney Harrison of Wellington, Missouri, and Piotr Kwiatkowski of Newington, Connecticut. According to the reports, the accident occurred when Freightliner semi-truck driven by Randall Huff lost control and ran off the left side of the roadway. Huff’s tractor-trailer struck the median and crossed into the westbound traffic lanes. In doing so, he collided into the Peterbilt semi-truck driven by Rodney Garrison. This collision caused both 18-wheelers to overturn in the roadway. Finally, as the 2007 Freightliner driven by Piotr Kwiatkowski approached, he attempted to avoid the overturned trucks but was unable to do so and struck the rear of Garrison’s truck.
More details have been released in the June 2, 2010 fatal semi-truck crash which happened on Northbound I-55 near McNutt Road in Herculaneum, Missouri. Since I originally blogged about this Herculaneum Tractor-Trailer Crash, more details have been released.
Semi-Truck Accident – Multi-Car Wreck At I-55 and McNutt in Herculaneum, Missouri
As a premier Missouri truck accident lawyer, I have learned the importance of retaining the best truck accident attorney as early as possible. The reason is so that I can download the truck’s black box data. Most people do not know this, but a semi-truck, or tractor-trailer, has an internal black box recorder like a plane does. Essentially, the black box records the truck’s actions in the seconds leading up to the crash. With this information, we can determine whether the truck driver was speeding or even if the driver ever hit the brakes before the crash. To get this information, we need to send an evidence preservation letter immediately after the crash. This preservation letter asks for a very compelling set of items, many of which are a choir to be maintained for a short period of time by the Federal motor carrier safety regulations. Of course, it also demands that we be given immediate access to the truck in order to download this black box data.
Recently, a truck accident settlement was obtained on behalf of a 2-year-old girl for the death of her father. Her father was 27-years-old at the time. He was driving down the road when a tractor-trailer truck pulled out of a driveway and caused the collision. The defense claimed that the young man was to blame for causing the wreck. They said he was speeding. Ultimately, however, they settled the case for $1.4 million.
As a Missouri truck accident lawyer, a very common injury I deal with in negotiating a truck accident settlement is the herniated disc, bulging disc, slipped disc, and/or pinched nerve. These terms all refer to the same condition in which the disc structure itself is injured and pushes out and presses on the nerves that exit the spinal cord and into the arms and legs. These structures can be injured whenever you have any type of whiplash motion. They are often very common in 18 wheeler wrecks because of the forces that are involved in those crashes. A common question I often get pertains to the value of a Missouri truck accident settlement with these types of injuries. Simply put, a herniated disc is our bread and butter and they often result in six and seven figure settlements. In fact, we just recently had a Missouri truck crash settlement of two million dollars, another for nine-hundred thousand dollars and another for five and half million dollars. The first two involved only herniated disc injuries. The last one obviously involved much more. Read More→
As a Missouri and Illinois tractor trailer injury attorney, I am often astounded at the number of attorneys who do not aggressively pursue punitive damages in tractor trailer truck accident cases. The fact is tractor trailer truck drivers are professional drivers and should be held at a higher level of care. However, many attorneys handling these cases are inexperienced and have not handled enough of them. They think that punitive damages are reserved only for claims where the truck driver was drunk or high on drugs. The truth is, there is a small group of elite tractor trailer lawyers throughout the nation who realize that punitive damage claims should be made a part of every tractor trailer case. This is because it is often not the conduct of the responsible truck driver which leads to the wreck, but rather the negligent acts of the trucking company. However, this is never discovered because many lawyers do not understand how to fully use the Federal Safety Regulations in these cases. The US Government has enacted Federal Safety Regulations which govern virtually every aspect of a truck company’s operation. This ranges from their evaluation of new truck drivers to how often they dispatch their truck drivers. Quite frankly, in all of my years, I am yet to be involved in a tractor trailer truck case where the truck company has not committed at least several violations. The law is the same in virtually every state that violations of these Federal Safety Regulations are a basis for punitive damages. More importantly, these regulations hold that the truck company is ultimately responsible for their driver’s actions. Thus, even if it is the truck driver himself who is committing all of the violations, the truck company is on the hook because they are responsible for constantly reviewing and evaluating the driver’s job performance. Thus, if the truck driver is consistently violating the regulations, it is the truck company’s duty to catch those violations. However, they hardly ever do and this leads to a great claim against the truck company for continuing to employ the truck driver.
SEMI SLAMS INTO BACK OF BUS IN ANDREW COUNTY, MISSOURI
By · CommentsOn New Year’s Eve, a semi tractor trailer truck was involved in a three-car accident. The accident happened on Interstate 29. The reported details are scant but it appears that the wreck occurred when the northbound vehicle was slowing down to make a left-hand turn into an emergency crossover. At that same location there was a semi truck being driven by Steven Frost. Apparently the eighteen-wheeler tried to avoid the car when it was struck in the rear end by a bus driven by Randy Swinford. A passenger on the bus, Melanie Spinnato suffered minor injuries but refused medical treatment at the scene. The same was true for the bus driver, Randy Swinford.