A seemingly routine drive home in Orangeburg, South Carolina, can become a nightmare after colliding with an 18-wheeler. The physical pain, doctor appointments, and endless calls with the trucking company, who only protect themselves rather than helping you. Add uncaring insurance companies, and it is a familiar tale for many truck accident victims and their loved ones.
But you can count on our truck accident attorney from Marc Brown Law Firm to help you with the legal process. Your personal injury lawyer at our firm will work tirelessly to hold the trucking company accountable if their negligence and the truck driver’s reckless behavior caused you harm. Through our offices in Columbia and Sumter, we represent those injured in truck accidents all across the state of South Carolina, including Orangeburg. Call us today to schedule a free consultation and learn more about your options.
Preserve Crucial Evidence After a Truck Accident
After a devastating truck accident, the trucking company and its insurance provider immediately enter damage control mode. Their priority is to protect their interests, often at the expense of your right to fair compensation. Here’s what happens behind the scenes:
- Trucking companies deploy a rapid response team to accident scenes within hours, if not minutes. The team gathers evidence to build a defense strategy, often before you’ve even had a chance to seek legal counsel.
- They prioritize repairing the damaged truck as quickly as possible, potentially erasing crucial evidence that could prove the truck driver’s negligence or the company’s liability.
- Trucking companies and their drivers must meet the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) regulations, which require maintaining certain records. However, they may have internal policies legally allowing them to destroy these records immediately. This eliminates valuable evidence related to driver fatigue, vehicle maintenance issues, or other factors that could have contributed to the accident.
- Modern trucks are equipped with in-cabin computers and satellite messaging systems that generate vast amounts of data. This data can be instrumental in your case, but some service providers delete it within days.
- Engine control modules (ECMs), or the truck’s “black box,” record vital information like speed, braking, and acceleration. This data is critical in proving the truck driver’s actions leading up to the accident. However, this data must be downloaded quickly, as it can only be recovered if preserved.
How an Experienced Truck Accident Attorney Helps You With Your Orangeburg Claim
Remember, time is of the essence. South Carolina law under S.C. Ann. § 15-3-530 imposes a time limit for filing lawsuits. Your car accident attorney will compassionately review your case and explain the deadlines for your claim, whether for personal injury or wrongful death. Here is how we help:
- Send a spoliation letter to demand that the trucking company preserve all relevant evidence
- Your attorney can seek a court order to compel the company to preserve electronic data and other crucial evidence if necessary
- Your attorney can hire experts to analyze the available evidence and reconstruct the accident, ensuring no stone is left unturned in your pursuit of justice
- An attorney can guide you through interactions with insurance adjusters and the at-fault party, protecting your rights and preventing missteps that could jeopardize your compensation.
Common Causes of Truck Accidents
Truck accidents happen in an instant, but the consequences for injury victims can have long-term adverse impacts on all aspects of life. The most common causes of truck accidents in Orangeburg and elsewhere in South Carolina include the following:
- Speeding or driving too fast for the road or weather conditions
- Distracted driving
- Unsafe lane changes (blindspot accidents)
- Improper merging
- Drowsy driving
- Failure to yield the right of way
- Tire blowouts
- Tailgating
- Improper passing
- Inadequate maintenance
- Defective parts or equipment
- The sudden shifting of an improperly secured load
- Improper braking
- Wide turns
Trucks are critical to the nation’s supply chain, but they also far outweigh standard family vehicles, leaving pedestrians vulnerable to serious or catastrophic injuries in an accident. According to the National Safety Council, around 70% of truck accident injuries occur to those in smaller vehicles, not to the truck driver.
Types of Truck Accidents In Orangeburg
Trucks have extended blind spots on both sides; they also require long braking distances and make wide turns. A fully loaded truck may legally weigh up to 80,000 pounds, causing a devastating accident scene after a crash. Truck accidents commonly include the following types of crashes:
- Rear-end collisions
- Sideswipes
- Head-on collisions
- T-bone accidents (angle collisions)
- Jackknife accidents (the trailer moves out of alignment with the truck, pushing it sideways into a crash shaped like a partly opened jackknife)
- Rollovers
- Underride accidents (a car wedges below the trailer)
- Override accidents (during a collision, the truck rides up and over the smaller vehicle)
- Multi-vehicle pile-ups
In the worst truck accident cases, explosions from fuel spills or toxic chemicals can impact entire communities.
Determining At-Fault Parties In a Truck Accident
The trucking industry is complex, with many separate entities involved in keeping a well-maintained truck on the road with a safely secured load and a well-qualified driver. It only takes one party’s failure to take reasonable care for a devastating accident to occur. After a truck accident, an injury victim’s attorney conducts an independent investigation of the accident to determine the liable party and compile evidence of the negligence that caused the accident. Common liable parties in truck accident cases include the following:
- The truck driver
- The trucking company
- A negligent truck maintenance company
- A negligent freight-loading company
- The manufacturer of a defective tire or part
In some cases, the investigation reveals other parties that are unrelated to the accident that are at fault or contributed to the accident, such as a negligent road construction contractor or a city road planning agency that designed an intersection with obstructed views.
You Deserve Just Compensation
Your truck accident lawyer will investigate the accident, identify all liable parties, and build a solid case to help secure compensation for your:
- Medical expenses
- Lost wages
- Pain and suffering
- Emotional distress
- Loss of enjoyment of life
- Property damage
- Wrongful death in the case of fatalities
- Punitive damages
Trust Marc Brown Law Firm With Your Truck Accident Claim
Truck accidents rarely result in minor injuries. When a massive commercial truck collides with a smaller vehicle, the occupants often suffer severe or even catastrophic harm, ranging from whiplash and facial injuries to broken bones and traumatic brain injuries.
If you have been injured in a truck accident, do not settle for less than you deserve. Contact an experienced truck accident lawyer with Marc Brown Law Firm today to assist you in receiving fair compensation for the substantial damages in your Orangeburg truck accident claim. You can reach us by phone or through our quick contact form to get started.