Commercial truck accidents frequently leave victims with serious injuries and significant medical bills. If you were the victim of a truck accident in Santa Ana, CA, understanding your rights and the steps involved in seeking compensation is vital.
Contact DJA Injury Lawyers at (949) 229-7228 for a consultation with a skilled Santa Ana truck accident lawyer. Our firm is dedicated to providing comprehensive legal support for those injured in collisions with large trucks. Through a personal injury lawsuit, you can seek compensation for your medical expenses, lost wages, and other accident-related losses.
Why Choose Our Santa Ana Truck Accident Lawyers?
Choosing the right law firm to handle your truck accident case is crucial. Some of the benefits of choosing our firm include:
- Personalized Legal Representation: We understand that every case is unique, and we will tailor a legal strategy to your particular situation and the specific circumstances of your case.
- Aggressive Negotiation Skills: Our lawyers are skilled negotiators who will seek favorable settlements from the at-fault parties’ insurance companies that cover all of your past and future medical expenses and lost wages.
- Trial Focus: Our firm doesn’t recommend you accept a settlement unless it’s in your best interest. From the start, we prepare to take your case to trial to get the compensation you need.
Types of Truck Accident Cases We Handle
Our lawyers handle various types of truck accident cases, including:
- Head-On Collisions: These are often the most severe truck accidents, resulting in serious and life-threatening injuries. Head-on truck collisions are often due to truck driver negligence, such as distracted, fatigued, or intoxicated driving.
- Rear-End Collisions: Even a low-speed rear-end collision involving a truck can cause significant injuries due to their size and weight. These accidents frequently occur due to speeding and distracted driving.
- Rollover Accidents: When trucks take turns too fast or their cargo is unbalanced, they are at a higher risk of rolling over. These accidents can cause trucks to crush smaller vehicles nearby.
- Jackknife Accidents: Braking at high speeds or on slippery surfaces can cause a truck’s trailer to swing out alongside the cab, causing vehicles traveling in adjacent lanes to be caught up in the collision.
- Underride Accidents: An underride accident is when a smaller vehicle goes under a truck’s trailer, often resulting in traumatic, sometimes fatal, head injuries. These accidents most frequently happen at intersections when truck drivers don’t yield the right of way to oncoming traffic.
Common Causes of Truck Accidents in Santa Ana
Some of the most common causes of truck accidents in Santa Ana are:
- Driver Fatigue: Drowsy driving increases the risk of truck drivers falling asleep behind the wheel and reduces their ability to react quickly to hazards on the road.
- Distracted Driving: Texting, talking on the phone, and eating while driving all distract truck drivers from the road and lead to an increase in accidents.
- Intoxicated Driving: Driving while intoxicated severely impairs a truck driver’s ability to make good decisions and stay within their lane.
- Poor Vehicle Maintenance: Improper vehicle maintenance can lead to a higher rate of accidents because of parts or systems failures that cause crashes.
- Defective Products: Poorly manufactured parts can fail at a higher rate, leading to crashes.
- Speeding: Large trucks need more distance than smaller vehicles to come to a complete stop. Speeding increases the distance required to stop, making it harder to avoid obstacles.
- Improperly Secured Cargo: When cargo isn’t properly secured, it can shift and fall from the back of a truck or contribute to a rollover accident.
- Poor Road Conditions: Large potholes and cracks in the road surface, missing traffic signs, and faded road markings can all contribute to truck accidents.
Injuries Frequently Suffered by Truck Accident Victims
Truck accident victims often suffer from serious injuries, such as:
- Traumatic Brain Injuries: TBIs occur when the brain strikes the inside of the skull or when an object penetrates the brain. They can result in permanent physical and cognitive impairment.
- Spinal Cord Injuries: Damage to the spinal cord can cause chronic pain or paralysis in severe cases.
- Bone Fractures: Broken and fractured bones are among the most common injuries suffered in truck accidents.
- Internal Organ Damage: Damage to internal organs can be fatal if not treated immediately.
- Crushed Limb Injuries: Limbs can be crushed or trapped in the wreckage, requiring amputation in the worst-case scenarios.
- Burns and Lacerations: Truck accident victims often suffer from deep lacerations and may suffer from burns if there is a vehicle fire.
- Psychological Injuries: Not all injuries suffered in a truck accident are physical. Many victims suffer from anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other psychological injuries.
Compensation Available After a Santa Ana Truck Accident
After a truck accident in Santa Ana, you can seek compensation for your injuries and the losses you incur as a result. You could get compensation for past and future medical expenses, including medical treatments, surgeries, prescription medications, and physical therapy. You deserve compensation for the wages you lost while recovering from your injuries and for any loss of earning capacity that results if your injuries leave you permanently impaired.
In addition to those specific losses, you can also pursue compensation for any accommodations you must make to your home because of new permanent disabilities. You can get money for the physical pain and emotional suffering you experience. You can also be reimbursed for the cost to repair or replace any property damaged in the crash, including your vehicle.
Laws Affecting Truck Accident Cases
Truck accident cases are often complex and require knowledge of both state and federal regulations. Some of the key laws that could affect your case are:
- Truck Weight Limits: Trucks must stay under certain weight limits when on California roads. Overloading vehicles can decrease the effectiveness of their brakes and lead to collisions.
- Cargo Securement Regulations: In California, various regulations govern how cargo must be secured. The exact regulations that apply depend on the type of cargo.
- Hours of Service Regulations: The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has regulations on the number of hours truck drivers can drive in a given period to prevent fatigued driving.
Who Could Be Liable for Your Truck Accident Injuries?
Multiple parties could be liable for injuries suffered in a truck accident, including:
- Truck Drivers: Negligent drivers could be liable for your injuries if they were speeding or distracted while driving.
- Trucking Companies: Trucking companies may be liable if their business practices contributed to the crash.
- Vehicle Manufacturers: Manufacturers may be liable if defective products, parts, or systems on the truck played a role in the accident.
- Maintenance Providers: Maintenance providers who missed issues that should have been addressed or didn’t adequately perform maintenance on the truck that harmed you could be liable.
- Cargo Loaders: If cargo loaders overloaded the truck, loaded it in an unbalanced way, or failed to follow cargo securement regulations, they could be liable for your injuries.
- Government Entities: When poor road maintenance contributes to a crash, such as if a large pothole causes a truck to collide with your vehicle, you may be able to hold the government entity responsible for maintaining the roads liable.
How to Prove Liability for a Truck Accident in Santa Ana
Proving liability in a truck accident case involves gathering various pieces of evidence. Your lawyer can collect the evidence on your behalf. They could obtain traffic camera footage, in which there may be an actual video of the accident taking place. If you took photos at the time of the accident, or if someone who was with you did so, those photos could be used as evidence. Your lawyer can also go back and take photos of the actual site, any skid marks on the road, traffic signs, and any other indicators of how the accident occurred.
Eye witness statements can corroborate your version of events or provide additional details, as can expert testimony. Your lawyer may hire an expert to testify on specific aspects of the case, such as your injuries or how various factors contributed to the crash. Other useful evidence can be found in the truck driver’s log book. These documents or electronic log books document the driver’s driving time and their time off.
Finally, your medical records can be used to prove the extent and severity of the injuries for which you’re seeking compensation.
Steps to Take After a Truck Accident
To protect your right to seek compensation after a truck accident, you should:
- Report the accident to the police and request a copy of their official report.
- Follow up with your doctor’s appointments and medical treatments.
- Keep any medical bills you receive related to the accident so your lawyer can calculate your medical expenses.
- Write down everything you remember about the accident for future reference.
- Avoid providing a recorded statement to insurance adjusters. Their job is to get you to admit full or partial fault for the accident so they can deny or reduce the value of your case.
- The best way to protect your legal rights after an accident is to contact an experienced personal injury lawyer.
Contact Our Truck Accident Lawyers Serving Santa Ana
If you were injured in a truck accident in Santa Ana, California, contact DJA Injury Lawyers at (949) 229-7228 today to speak with an experienced member of our legal team. During your initial consultation, we’ll review your case, explain your options for recovering the compensation you deserve, and answer any questions you have about the process. Our team is committed to helping you hold the parties responsible for your injuries financially liable.