If you have been seriously injured or have lost a loved one in a commercial truck or big rig accident in or near Cheyenne, you shouldn't fight by yourself to get the compensation you are entitled to. Because we are aware of how devastating these accidents can be, our truck accident attorneys in Cheyenne aggressively take on truck accident cases.
Our Cheyenne truck accident lawyers understand the unique challenges with commercial truck and 18-wheeler accident cases, and we have experience winning settlements and verdicts for our clients. Contact us today at 866-377-3800, day or night, for a free consultation.
How Are Truck Crashes Different than Car Crashes?
A commercial truck accident claim is far more complicated than an ordinary auto accident claim due to the extensive injuries, number of liable parties, and layers of insurance coverage.
Many trucking companies and their insurance companies have extensive experience handling collision claims involving car drivers. We've even seen cases where attorneys and investigators arrived on the crash scene before first responders. To many attorneys, this may seem intimidating but to our Cheyenne truck accident lawyers, this is business as usual.
Insurance companies often put enormous pressure on victims to accept lump sum payments that are far less than what they actually need for medical treatment and damages. If you have suffered a catastrophic injury, or a loved one has been killed in a truck accident in the Cheyenne area, you need a truck accident attorney to help you find medical experts that can provide a road map for treatment.
If you or a loved one were seriously injured or killed in a commercial truck accident in or around Cheyenne, you should talk to a lawyer as soon as possible. Commercial truck accident claims are much more complicated than regular car accident claims, and you will need an experienced Cheyenne truck accident lawyer to fight on your behalf.
How to Choose a Truck Accident Attorney?
First, you need a Wyoming truck accident attorney who has a wealth of experience successfully helping people who have been seriously injured in truck accidents. Serious injury claims are very complex in nature, without the complexity of a truck accident.
Second, you need an attorney who has extensive experience in truck accidents. He or she has to know how to prove the other party's liability, and also has to know how to find that extra layer of insurance that is often hidden. Seriously injured victims deserve every penny Cheyenne truck accident lawyers earned for them.
Third, you need a law firm large enough to handle trucking cases, which are more expensive, time-consuming, and resource-intensive than other types of cases. Some attorneys who come to us have experience winning truck cases but lack the financial or human resources.
Lastly, look for a law firm with lawyers who are Board Certified in Truck Accident litigation. If you would want a Board Certified surgeon operating on you, you should demand the same from your truck accident attorney.
How Much Can I Get In a Truck Accident Settlement or Verdict?
Truck accidents can result in a variety of serious injuries or death. Those injured face a long, painful and expensive recovery process. Some of the financial losses a victim can experience may include:
- Loss of wages
- Diminished earning capacity
- Extensive medical bills and therapy
- Possible funeral costs
These factors are considered along with other factors when determining compensation. You will then be rewarded with two types of damages - economic and non-economic.
Economic loss includes all financial costs incurred after the accident. These include, but are not limited to, current and future medical expenses, lost wages, loss of earning capacity, and funeral expenses.
Non-economic damages are intended to compensate you and your family for suffering after the accident, such as: pain and suffering, emotional distress, and other losses.
In rare cases, punitive damages may be awarded if the defendant's actions were fraudulent, reckless, or malicious. These types of damages are designed to punish the defendant in order to prevent the behavior from happening again. Insurance rarely covers all of the losses and expenses that result from a tractor-trailer wreck. Trucking, hauling, and leasing companies often seek to minimize payments by disputing victims' insurance claims. Trucking firms and insurance companies often use tactics that can add to the trauma and expense of being in a commercial motor vehicle crash.
When negotiations fail to achieve adequate funds for victims, the pursuit of a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit is the proper course of action. Our truck accident attorneys have won millions of dollars in settlements and verdicts, including many multi-million-dollar awards.
Insurance companies won't automatically cover all losses and expenses resulting from a tractor trailer accident. Trucking, hauling and transport companies often try to minimize payments by disputing victims' insurance claims. Strategies commonly employed by trucking companies and insurance companies can increase the trauma and expense of commercial motor vehicle accidents.
If negotiations fail to provide sufficient funds for the victim, then pursuing a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit is your only recourse. Our truck accident attorneys have won multi-million dollar settlements and judgments for injured car drivers and injured truck drivers.
Why Are Commercial Truck Black Boxes Important for Truck Accident victims?
Black boxes are very important to those injured in truck accidents because they provide information about how and why the accident happened that cannot be found anywhere else. Black boxes can show what happened before and after a horrific accident involving a tractor and trailer.
Black boxes are very important for truck accident cases because they tell how and why a crash happened in a way that can't be found anywhere else. Black boxes can show what happened before and after a terrible tractor-trailer crash. The data are often the only way for a Cheyenne truck accident lawyer to prove that a truck driver was speeding or never attempted to brake before the truck crash.
Black box data is very useful, but it's not always easy to get. Truck companies won't just give information from the black box to people who were hurt in an accident. Most likely, they won't do anything to keep it because most devices delete data after a certain number of times the truck starts up or after a certain amount of time. The longer a victim waits to hire a Cheyenne truck accident attorney, the closer that data is to being deleted.
If you or someone you care about was hurt in a tractor-trailer accident, you must contact an experienced trucking accident lawyer as soon as possible. Your Cheyenne truck accident lawyer can send a spoliation letter to the trucking company, demanding that the contents of the black box be saved and sent to them. This will keep the information from being lost.
Your truck accident lawyer must not only know how to get the information from the black box, but also how to use it to help you win your case. To do this, you need to know a lot about how trucks work and what their standards are, as well as the rules that govern the trucking industry. It could also mean hiring one or more experts to help with the investigation or testify in court about things like trucker fatigue, FMCSA compliance, tractor trailer brake systems, the physics of semi-truck crashes, or how black boxes work.
What Are Common Injuries Following a Cheyenne Truck Accident?
If a commercial truck crashes into your car, you and the other people in the car have probably been seriously injured. Most crashes between trucks weighing up to 80,000lbs and 2,000lbs passenger cars are very serious because of the massive size difference.
Traumatic brain injuries and some spinal cord injuries, sometimes go unnoticed by first responders, which can have terrible results. If the injuries kill the person, the person's family may be able to file a claim for "wrongful death."
Some of the serious injuries our law firm sees from these crashes are:
- Neck injuries
- Back injuries
- Seat belt injuries
- Broken bones
- Rib and torso injuries
- Head injuries
- Traumatic brain injuries
- Paralysis
- Spinal cord injuries
- Internal organ injuries
- Burn injuries
- Lacerations
Serious injuries won't heal quickly, and some of them may never get better. Treating them may take years and cost more than any average person could afford. Be confident that our Cheyenne truck accident lawyers can get you the money you deserve. You should never have to worry about how to pay for your medical care from a truck accident.
Common Causes of Wyoming Big Rig Wrecks
There are numerous factors that could lead to a truck accident in Wyoming. An exhausted driver can fall asleep on one of our long highways or a strong gust of wind could flip a semi-truck onto other vehicles.
The most important thing for a truck accident victim to understand is that commercial truck crashes are preventable. The federal and many state governments require truck companies to follow very specific laws and standards for public safety. When companies put profits before public safety, truck crashes happen.
Some of the most common reasons for accidents involving trucks and 18-wheelers in the Cheyenne area are:
- Driver fatigue
- Driver inexperience
- Lack of training/negligence during the hiring process
- Overloaded/overstuffed trucks
- Brake/mechanical failure/defect
- Poor/dangerous driving conditions
- Speeding/otherwise careless driving
- Failure to yield right of way
- Aggressive driving behavior
- Driving under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol
Who Is Liable?
If you sustained a serious injury or a loved one died in a truck accident due to negligence, there may be multiple parties liable for your damages, including:
- The truck driver
- A trucking company
- A shipping company
- A broker
- The truck manufacturer
- A third party (e.g., another driver involved in the crash)
Claims involving tractor-trailers, 18-wheelers, semis, big rigs, and other large commercial vehicles are rarely straightforward and often complex. If you want to maximize the value of your claim, you should strongly consider hiring an experienced attorney.
