A commercial truck crash is the average driver’s worst nightmare. Huge 18-wheelers can demolish smaller vehicles and severely injure their occupants.
Not only is a crash itself usually worse when there is a big size difference between the vehicles involved, but the process of handling the crash fallout is inevitably more of a challenge when the collision at issue involves a large commercial vehicle. What makes collisions between passenger vehicles and commercial trucks so complex when compared with “standard” car crashes?
The difficulty in establishing fault
It can be very challenging to tease out responsibility after a crash, especially when the damage to the smaller vehicle may be so severe that it is hard to prove exactly what occurred.
Both commercial drivers and those in four-wheel vehicles often have their own version of events about what caused the crash, which can make it very difficult for people to prove that they were not at fault and that they have grounds for a claim against the truck driver or their employer.
The potential of numerous responsible parties
As if just establishing that the bigger vehicle was to blame wouldn’t be hard enough, there are also many parties that could technically be to blame for that commercial crash. Often, the truck driver may have made a mistake at the wheel that led to the collision.
However, it may also be possible that their employer is responsible because of company policy or poor vehicle maintenance. It could even be a client that hired the truck driver that is to blame if the crash was a result of a poorly-loaded trailer causing a driver to lose control.
The bigger insurance policy
The final reason why commercial vehicle crashes are often far more complex than smaller vehicle wrecks is that there is a much higher insurance requirement for commercial vehicles, so there is greater potential for loss on the part of the insurance provider. The claims that stem from major commercial crashes are often very intense and may require lengthy negotiations to resolve satisfactorily.
Recognizing how challenging a compensation claim can be after a semi-truck crash should hopefully inspire more injury victims to seek adequate legal support when navigating this complex process. No one who has been hurt in this way should have to deal with the aftermath of an injurious crash alone.