I was hit by a commercial truck. How is this different from a car crash?

The company is usually the real defendant

A carrier is responsible for its driver acting in the course of employment. That alone changes the size of the claim, because the company’s policy is an order of magnitude larger than a personal one.

There is often a second, independent route. A carrier that hired a driver with a disqualifying history, failed to train or supervise, pushed a schedule that could not be run legally, or skipped required maintenance is liable for its own conduct, not merely the driver’s. That route survives even where the driver’s own fault is contested.

Other parties can be in the chain too: the trailer owner, the broker who arranged the load, the shipper who loaded it, and the maintenance contractor.

Federal rules set the standard of care

Interstate carriers run under the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations. Those rules cap driving hours, mandate electronic logging, require pre-trip inspections, and set out drug and alcohol testing after a qualifying crash.

This matters because a regulation is a written standard. Where a rule was broken and the rule exists to prevent the kind of harm that happened, that is far stronger than arguing in the abstract about reasonable care.

The driver qualification file, the maintenance file and the logs are all documents the carrier is required to keep. Getting them is the case.

The evidence has a shorter life than the deadline

You have two years to sue. The proof does not last two years.

Hours-of-service records only have to be retained for six months. Engine control module data, which records speed, braking and throttle in the seconds before impact, can be lost when the tractor is repaired or the unit is put back in service. Dashcam footage cycles in days. The truck itself gets fixed and returned to the road.

A spoliation letter sent in the first days puts the carrier on notice that it must preserve all of it. Sent in month four, it often arrives after the material is lawfully gone.

What these cases are worth, and why they are fought hard

An 80,000-pound vehicle against a passenger car produces injuries at the severe end: spinal, orthopedic, traumatic brain injury, and death. The damages are correspondingly large.

Carriers know this, and most send a rapid response team to the scene within hours to photograph, measure and interview while everything is fresh. By the time an injured person is out of the hospital, the other side has often had an investigator on the ground for a week.

What to do now

Get the carrier’s name and the USDOT number from the door of the tractor if you can, or from the crash report.

Photograph the tractor, the trailer, the load and the scene, and get the names of witnesses before they leave.

Say nothing recorded to the carrier’s insurer or its investigator. They are professionals and you are not, and that conversation is the one they build the defense from.

Move quickly on preservation. This is the one claim type where a week of delay can cost you the evidence that proves it.

Common questions