Florida Truck Accident Guide

People that have been involved in accidents in a commercial trucking situation where a tractor trailer semi or a logging truck has collided with them often want to know what’s the first thing to do. Without fail, without exception, we tell them go get medical treatment, even if you don’t think you’re hurt, because many times, pain and discomfort don’t show up for several days. If you don’t get treated or if you don’t go see a doctor within the first 14 days, your own insurance is not required to pay. Go get checked out. Go get treated. Then the treatment process can happen and you’ll be in good shape.

The next thing to do is call a lawyer. Let the lawyer do the things that are important, such as preserve evidence. This is regardless of whether you actually have a case or not. He can go out to the accident scene, photograph the scene because collision scenes change, particularly up here in Nassau County. He can photograph the damage to your car. Cars get repaired, particularly if you have your own insurance collision coverage— they want to go in and get those cars repaired quickly. If we can get in early, we can preserve that evidence. The more we can preserve, the more value your case will have. First and foremost, if you’re involved in a trucking accident, commercial trucking accident. go get treated so that your medical condition gets as good as it can get. If you’ve been involved in a commercial trucking accident in Nassau County, Duval County, call us. We’d be happy to sit down with you, go over those issues and many more.

Mistakes we see people make when they’ve been involved in a commercial trucking accident in northeast Florida, Nassau County, or Duval County, is they don’t get medical treatment. Sometimes with the rush of adrenaline immediately following a collision, the pain receptors are masked and you don’t feel like you’re hurt so you don’t get medical treatment. Sometimes this pain doesn’t come on for several days. If you don’t get treated immediately, you won’t get the optimal recovery. If you don’t get treated and we take your case to trial, a jury might not believe that you’re hurt. Get treated immediately, particularly in Florida because if you don’t get treated within 14 days of the accident, your own insurance, your PIP insurance, will not be obligated to pay. That’s another reason. Get treated and call a lawyer because the lawyer can help navigate you through all of that. They can preserve evidence and can do the things that lawyers can do. That will help your case as well. Call us today. We’ll be able to help you in your case in Nassau County, Duval County. Thank you.

Putting a value on a trucking accident case is something that happens along the way in a case, not right away. People often ask in the initial conference what the value of their trucking accident case is. We don’t answer that question simply because we don’t have the answer in the initial conference. Lots goes into putting a value on your case: the nature and severity of your injury, whether your injury is permanent or not, and whether it impairs your ability to get through a day, for example. Whether you were working outside the home or not and other factors, whether the trucker was completely at fault or whether you and someone else shared the responsibility also goes into factoring the value of a case. Many times, we don’t have the pieces to that puzzle until later on. Typically, we won’t answer that question until we are well into the case after we’ve collected lots of information. Nonetheless, if you’ve been hurt in a trucking accident here in Nassau County, Duval County, or anywhere in northeast Florida, give us a call. We’ll sit down. We’ll talk about that as well as all the other issues of your case.

One common question we hear with potential clients is how long a case is going to last. Those who have been involved in trucking cases, particularly up here in Nassau County where we have trucks clogging up the only east-west corridor state road 200 going to and from the paper mills here, want to know how long it’s going to take. Trucking accidents are not like automobile accident cases. They are more complex. They will take longer. If we cannot resolve your case without filing the lawsuit, the lawsuit will get complex. It could take a couple of years. We could resolve your case without filing a lawsuit in 9 to 14 months, maybe less. It depends on several factors: our ability to collect records and get medical information, for one. If we get into the lawsuit, it will take longer than an automobile accident case simply because it’s more complex— two years, maybe longer. If you’ve been involved in a trucking accident in Nassau County or Duval County, call us. We’ll sit down. We’ll go over the ins and outs and how best we can help you.

People often ask whether they should be talking to the insurance company following a commercial trucking tractor trailer semi collision. There are two answers. With regards to their own insurance company, yes, you talk to that insurance company. They are your insurance company. You have a duty and responsibility under your contract with them to cooperate. What that means is you contact them immediately after the collision. You let them know you were hurt. They many times will want a statement from you, either written or over the phone. They will send you either online or via the US mail a packet of information that you will have to complete. You will want to do that. If you do not cooperate with your own insurance company, they can void your coverage. You do not want that in a time of need such as this.

With regards to any other insurance company, particularly the insurance company representing the trucking company, the driver, etc., do not talk to them. They are experts in their field. You are not. This quite likely is your first collision where you’ve been hurt. You do not know what you do not know. We will strongly advice you to not talk to the insurance companies. In fact, if you’ve come to see us, that is one of the things we will instruct you. Do not talk to them. Instead, give them our contact information and have them call us. They know the rules. It is illegal for them to talk to you once you have told them that you’re represented by a lawyer. They know how it works. The information will go through our office and then you can concentrate on getting better. If you’ve been hurt in a commercial trucking collision, either in Nassau County, Duval County, any of the cities in there, call us. We’ll sit down and talk about it and figure out how best we can help you.

People often ask who we are going to sue in a trucking case, a commercial trucking case. We tell them we will sue as many people as we can think of. One issue is whether we can we sue the employer of the driver who was involved in this collision who was drunk. The answer is yes. The reason for that is that, in Florida, an employer who puts someone behind the wheel of a tractor trailer, a semi, is responsible for the conduct of that driver, whether they’re drunk or not. If they’re drunk, it puts the employer in a very difficult position. It can bring in issues of punitive damages. It’s the employer who usually buys the insurance policy. Whether you’ve got that issue or any other issue, call us. If you’ve been hurt in a trucking accident in Nassau County or Duval County, we’ll sit down. We’ll go over things and see how best we can help you.

When someone dies in a collision, we are often approached by a family member. They ask, what can we do? Can we make a claim? Can we sue the at fault trucker who killed my loved one? The answer is yes, under certain circumstances. When someone dies in the state of Florida, the case is governed by Florida’s Wrongful Death Act, which has been on the books for a very long time now. It allows people to file a lawsuit against the at-fault driver. They are known as survivors. Typically, they are the surviving spouse, children of the deceased person, and others that the deceased person was providing financial support for. If you’ve lost a loved one because of the negligence of a trucker in Nassau or Duval County, call us. We’ll sit down. We’ll go over everything and figure out how best we can help your situation.

Sooner or later, clients ask about settlement offers. They often ask if we should take the first offer. Generally speaking, the answer is no. The reason for that is insurance company are behaving in these moments like most companies that are in negotiating mode. They will try to get offers as low as they can. They start with a low offer. Sometimes it’s so low it’s insulting. We tell the clients don’t be insulted.— we are in it for the long haul. They know we aren’t going to take the first offer. There are exceptions to every rule, however. If your case has very serious liability problems or other problems, we may revisit that. Even in that circumstance, we’re probably not going to take that first offer. Our goal is to get the best offer on the table. That takes multiple rounds of negotiating back and forth, which we’ve been doing for decades in northeast Florida, Duval County, and Nassau County. If you have a case where you’ve been hurt in a trucking accident case, call us right away. We’ll go over your case. We’ll see how best we can help you.