As an Atlanta Accident Attorney, I know that the vast majority of fatal vehicular deaths and serious injury cases involves tractor trailers or 18 wheelers. These cases require a Georgia trucking accident attorney or a Atlanta tractor trailer accident lawyer to properly handle them. The Law Office of Joseph P. McClelland negotiates insurance claims in Atlanta, Marietta, Decatur, Griffin, Macon and throughout the state. The pure size and mass of these trucks, semi trucks, and 18 wheelers makes them quite dangerous, even more so than your car. To make matters worse, Georgia truck drivers are on the road for long periods of time. This causes fatigue. Numerous laws are in place to restrict the truck driver’s time on the road and mandating rest periods. However, even with those rules in place, deaths are still a regular occurrence. Interstate 75, Interstate 85, I-20, and 285 are all prime spots for a car injury. If you or a loved on has been injured by an 18 wheeler in McDonough, Decatur, Atlanta, Macon, Marietta, Jackson, and more. Speak to a personal injury attorney at 770-775-0938 for a free, no obligation conversation about your case.
Georgia Trucking Statistics
Statistics on commercial vehicle collisions indicate that they happen every 16 seconds in the U.S. The Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards for cars are not designed to withstand the impact of a semi truck hitting you or jackknifing. Large trucks have huge blind spots or no zones that make them dangerous. Also, these trucks make wide right turns and create what is know at the “squeeze play”. Further, commercial trucks require much more distance to come to a complete stop and a car or motorcycle. U.S. National Transportation Safety Board has estimated that between twenty and forty percent of commercial vehicle accidents occur because of tired drivers.
Types of Injuries in Tractor Trailer Wrecks
- broken bones
- strained neck and back
- sprained neck and back
- lacerations
- burns
- whiplash
- concussion
- wrongful death
Georgia Areas of Compensation in Trucking Cases
- emotional distress
- missed work
- medical bills
- future medical bills
- future pain and suffering
- loss of enjoyment of life
- loss of consortium
- punitive damages
Talk to an experienced Georgia Tractor Trailer Injury Lawyer at 770-775-0938.
Of course, pain and suffering is a factor to be included. This factor depends of the type of medical treatment required, the extent of your injuries, the amount of work missed, the way it changed your life, the way it will change your future like, and similar types of questions.
Medical bills from your case are the bread and butter of our demand package. We will work side by side with you to make sure we have itemized each hospital and every facility you have gone to because of the trucking accident. It is vital to get all the medical bill because 1) that bill need to get negotiated and paid, and 2) we could have used is to get more money from the tractor trailer’s insurance company.
Our firm will work with each hospital, physical therapist, or any other provider to get each and every medical record associated with the your treatment. These documents are the meat of your Georgia trucking injury insurance claim. The authority on your injuries is your doctor and everyone who saw you while you were undergoing treatment and rehabilitation.
Our firm will also research accident cases that involve similar injuries as you have suffered. We will analyze the cases based upon the individual facts and the county that each case was tried. A case in Atlanta or tried in Jasper County will typically yield different results . The trial verdict in a Metro Atlanta county like Clayton County or Fulton County will usually be higher than a smaller rural county like Monroe County or Lamar County. That does not mean that you will not get a favorable verdict, just that there is more of a likelihood of a higher verdict in those counties.
If the driver of the commercial vehicle was intoxicated, then your personal injury case is much different. The different type of drug may also change the value of the case. Insurance companies are scared of punitive damages and will attempt to settle the personal injury case fast especially if the accident was in Clayton County, Fulton County, or Dekalb County.
One of the things that I will do for you is your accident attorney, is to make sure that none of the important evidence is lost, misplaced, or intentionally destroyed. What the law firm will do immediately after the accident is to send an anti-spoilation letter to the insurance company. What this does is informs the insurance company that a claim may be filed and that certain information that they have may be required in a lawsuit. Now, there is no individual tort for destroying evidence. However, certain favorable inferences may be drawn from the absence of certain evidence. Before your family was probably even notified of the accident and definitely before they are arrived on the scene of the accident, and insurance company representative for the truck driver was already on scene. Most likely an attorney for the insurance company was already there, as well. What that means for a plaintiff’s attorney is that we already start off behind them. In the truck driving accident or an accident with a 18 wheeler being on the ball in prepared early in the case is almost essential. It is important in all cases, but with trucking cases especially.
Of course, the standard operating procedures that apply in a car accident also apply a trucking accident. That is never discuss the accident or the injury you sustained with the insurance company for the other side. Not only should you not discuss the case with them, under no circumstances before you speak with an attorney should you sign anything that they attempt to put in front of you.
The Law Office of Joseph P. McClelland handles car wrecks, auto collisions, truck accidents, Motorcycle Wrecks, car wrecks, biking injuries, pedestrian injuries, motorcycle wrecks, dog bites and other negligence cases in McDonough, Henry County;Jackson, Butts County; Macon truck collisions, Bibb County; Griffin, Spalding County; Monticello, Stockbridge, Henry County; Morrow, Clayton County, Decatur tractor trailer injury, Dekalb County, Stone Mountain, Dekalb County; Barnesville, Lamar County, Snellville, Gwinnett County, Marietta, Cobb County; Atlanta trucking injuries, Fulton County and all of state.
There is no substitute for speaking with an attorney about your specific situation. All trucking accidents are different. All injuries are different. All individual plaintiffs or victims of any accident are different. For those reasons and more, do not rely on the information on this website as specific legal advice. I hope you have found this article enjoyable. If you’ve gotten this far in the article it is most likely because you or a family member has been injured. If that is the case, you must contact an accident attorney immediately.
By: Georgia Attorney, Joseph P. McClelland