Were you seriously injured in a commercial vehicle wreck? Read these 4 truck accident recommendations for you, then call our Atlanta attorney.
1) Mistakes to Avoid After a Truck Accident
Commercial vehicle wrecks are much different than general auto wrecks and need to be handled differently.
We often see people who have harmed their case because they didn’t immediately seek medical attention after the incident. Often, we have people that wait multiple weeks before they actually go seek treatment. Once you have started that process of receiving medical treatment, make sure you follow through with it. We see people all the time who have harmed their case because they didn’t follow through with their treatment. Don’t miss treatment, because you will have insurance companies who latch onto those gaps in treatment and claim that you must not have been as injured as you say.
Finally, make sure that you immediately hire a lawyer who knows how to handle commercial vehicle wrecks so that they can get the process started. It is crucial in commercial vehicle wrecks to hire an attorney who knows how to handle these cases because evidence needs to be preserved immediately. If that evidence is not preserved, then your case is going to be infinitely harder to prove and document. Make sure that you hire an experienced attorney who handles these cases regularly.
2) Steps to Take After a Truck Accident
The first thing you need to do is make sure that you seek medical attention and get treated for anything that might be bothering you. Often, injuries don’t reveal themselves until a day or two after the accident.
The first thing that happens is your body goes through a stage in which it produces a lot of adrenaline. As a result, you may not feel initially injuries that you in fact have suffered. As soon as you start feeling those injuries, it’s important to make sure that you get checked out, both to get the treatment and to have your injuries documented. Insurance companies love to point to the days that have gone by before someone gets treated. It’s important to make sure that you get that treatment and that you get the documentation necessary.
The next thing to do is to contact a personal injury attorney who has experience in working through commercial vehicle accidents. Commercial vehicle accidents are very different from regular motor vehicle accidents because there’s a lot more evidence that needs to be preserved. There is an entirely different set of rules and regulations, too, that applies to professional drivers such as truck drivers. The sooner an injury attorney can get to gathering that information and investigating the claim, the better off they can leave you in your personal injury case.
3) Truck Accident Liability
One of the things that makes handling commercial vehicle wreck cases unique and difficult is that various parties could be responsible for the damages caused by the wreck. When you’re just dealing with a regular person who causes a car wreck, it is generally only that person who is responsible for his or her damages. That’s not the case when you’re dealing with a commercial vehicle. In that situation, there are multiple parties who may be responsible. The first and most obvious party is the driver. The second is the company that the driver is working for. Under Georgia law, when a driver commits a negligent act and injures someone while working for a company, that company is responsible for all the damages caused by their driver’s negligence. Also, when these types of commercial vehicle wrecks occur in Georgia, we are allowed to sue directly the insurance company that provides coverage for the trucking company or the commercial vehicle company. That’s not the case in general vehicle incidents that do not involve commercial policies. Finally, it’s important to investigate these issues thoroughly because, in some situations, the party that hired the trucking company can also be responsible for the damages that it caused. If you’ve been injured in a wreck involving a commercial vehicle, it’s important to contact an attorney who’s experienced in handling these matters.
4) Choosing a Truck Accident Attorney
The first thing is experience. Working up a commercial truck case is not the same as working up a car wreck case. There are many different things that go into consideration because of the way the laws are structured in regard to commercial truck drivers. Commercial truck drivers are professional drivers, so there are a lot more stringent regulations that go into operating those vehicles. There is a lot of federal regulation that you have to work through in order to be able to properly handle a commercial truck case. We have experience in handling these types of wrecks and working through all of the relevant information in order to properly work up a commercial truck wreck case.
Another thing to keep in mind is that you want a law firm that has been able to deliver results in these types of cases. It’s important to know that the law firms or attorneys that you’re talking to know their way around these cases and aren’t going to be figuring it out as they go.
Another thing to make sure that you understand about these cases is you want an attorney who has experience taking commercial truck wreck cases to trial. Often, commercial truck wreck cases rely significantly more on expert witnesses than a general car wreck case. You need an attorney who has experience with those types of experts and with presenting these cases to a jury. You’re not looking for an attorney who will just work these cases up without the requisite experts and take an insurance company’s best offer, regardless of whether it’s a good resolution for you or not. You want to have an attorney that you know will take a case all the way to trial, if necessary. Sometimes you need a jury to force these insurance companies to give you a fair resolution to your injury claim.
Were you or a loved one seriously injured in a commercial vehicle wreck in Georgia and have questions about these 4 truck accident recommendations for you?
Contact the experienced Atlanta truck accident lawyers at Gunnels Injury Law today to arrange a free consultation and case evaluation.
Let our experience work for you.
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