Marietta, GA Truck Accident Lawyer

Fewer accidents are more devastating in Marietta than truck collisions. If you were injured in a truck accident, you might not know the limit of your financial and emotional damages.

Our team can help by reviewing your case and filing a lawsuit to get the compensation you need. The good news is that you might have multiple paths to payment. Multiple defendants are usually named in these claims, spreading liability and damages between them. Not only will we usually sue the truck driver, but we will also name the trucking company as a defendant. We will also gather evidence to determine if other parties could be at fault. Many truck accidents involve multiple vehicles, so we might need to sue each driver to determine the level of liability in your case.

For a free case review with our truck accident attorneys, call Rice, Murtha & Psoras at (470) 287-3070.

Who Can Be Held Responsible for a Truck Accident in Marietta, GA

Being injured in a truck accident could easily leave you with significant damages. To recover compensation in a lawsuit, you will need to know who to sue. Fortunately, our truck accident attorneys know how to identify those responsible and make them pay. When we assess fault, we will look at the likely parties, like the truck driver and trucking company. However, we will also help determine if another person or business contributed to your accident. The following are common defendants in Marietta truck accident lawsuits:

Truck Drivers

Truck driver negligence is the most common reason for these types of accidents. Many truckers are required to drive long distances for continuous hours. While they are supposed to take regular breaks, they sometimes fail to do so to get a competitive edge. As such, many truck accidents are caused by fatigued drivers.

Many truckers also injure others on the road because they are speeding to complete the job. The faster a truck is going, the less chance it has of avoiding an accident. The accident could be catastrophic or even deadly if the truck is a large one, like an 18-wheeler. In many cases, we can get the truck’s “black box,” which is an important device that records truck and trip data while it is in operation. If the trucker was speeding when the accident occurred, the black box should be able to tell us.

Trucking Companies

In most of these cases our team handles, when we sue the truck driver, we also sue the trucking company that employs them. We can do this even if the trucking company did not act directly liable. For instance, if the trucker was speeding, it would seem that the trucking company could hardly be accountable for that conduct. On the contrary, employers are vicariously liable for all the acts of their employees if they are in furtherance of their job duties.

Sometimes, a trucking company needs to be sued for its own negligence. For example, trucking companies are responsible for inspecting their trucks, making repairs, and keeping maintenance records. If they skipped an inspection or never did them at all, we can usually show their negligence through the lack of records. We could also file a lawsuit against the trucking company if they put a dangerous trucker on the road or failed to do a background check.

Other Parties

It is rare for truck accidents to involve only the truck and other vehicles. More often than not, several drivers are involved, and any one of the other drivers could have contributed to the accident. One driver could have been speeding, while the truck driver failed to check before merging into them. After the accident begins, other drivers could crash into it if they were not paying attention to the road ahead, leading to a chain collision.

Our team will gather evidence that illustrates how each driver is at fault. This can be challenging, especially if a driver flees the scene, but our team can help track them down. Some trucks are equipped with cameras these days, so it might be possible to identify a driver with surveillance footage.

More challenging cases are those where the truck driver did not act negligently, but a truck accident occurred anyway. This typically occurs when the truck or a system on the truck malfunctions in some way. Perhaps the air brakes failed, and the driver could not stop before crashing into you. Or, the truck’s power steering gave out at a critical moment. Our team can help determine if the flaw occurred in the manufacturing process or in the design phase, suing either the manufacturer or designer for the defect.

While trucking companies generally cannot contract out the inspection work they do for their trucks, it is possible the truck was serviced for a particular repair by an outside mechanic or repair shop. When our lawyers investigate your accident, we can learn whether the truck was fixed by a party other than the trucking company. In most cases, we will file a lawsuit naming each of them as defendants.

Common Types of Truck Accidents that Occur in Marietta, GA

Truck accidents can come in many different forms, but few are minor. How your truck accident happened will tell our team a great deal about who acted negligently to cause it.

“Jackknife” accidents are one of the most serious types of truck accidents. Jackknifing occurs when the trailer on the truck loses balance and swings back towards the cab of the truck. These accidents can prove deadly as the trailer makes an L-shape with the truck, which can extend across several lanes of traffic. When a jackknife accident occurred, it is very likely the cargo was loaded incorrectly. This might mean the driver is liable or a cargo loading company that handled the delivery.

Many jackknife accidents also happen when a truck fishtails. A truck might fishtail because its tires were bald, causing it to lose contact with the road. Speeding can also lead to fishtailing accidents. Other times, a trucker is going too fast in the rain and hydroplanes. In any case, it is clear in these accidents that the driver acted carelessly.

One of the most devasting types of truck accidents we see but are all too common are “underride” accidents. These accidents happen when a driver’s car comes directly under the truck’s trailer. The destruction from an underride accident can prove deadly, and the force of being under the truck can total the vehicle under it. However, trailers must be equipped with a “Mansfield” bar. If they do not, the trucker and the manufacturer of the trailer can be held liable.