Being injured in a truck accident can leave you and your family reeling. While you might struggle to cope with the physical pain and suffering thrust upon you, the financial realities of your situation, including exorbitant medical expenses and lost wages, can leave you without the stability that you need. This might threaten your ability to maintain your housing and simply keep food on the table.
To avoid such a dire outcome, you might want to consider taking legal action. But if you’re going to pursue a claim against a trucker and his employer, then you need to be prepared to go up against some aggressive defenses. With that in mind, you should think about what you can do now to start building your case.
Tips for building your truck accident claim
Fortunately, there’s a lot that you can do to lay the groundwork for your truck accident claim. This includes each of the following:
- Request trucking logs: Truckers are required to keep a log of their driving activity. By gaining access to these records, you can better determine if the trucker who caused the accident was operating his vehicle in violation of hours-of-service regulations or if he had somehow detoured from his employer’s prescribed route.
- Maintenance records: Semi-trucks are supposed to undergo not just yearly inspections, but also post-trip inspections where the trucker assesses the vehicle to determine if there are any defects that need repair. If you can get your hands on maintenance records, then you can figure out if the trucker and his employer were negligent in conducting these inspections and remedying identified safety issues.
- Talk to witnesses: This might seem obvious, but if you want to build your truck accident case, then you need to talk to those who saw the wreck. Make sure that you’re asking them thorough and detailed questions so that you’re not taken by surprise should they testify later in your case. Also make sure that you take down their contact information so that you know how to get a hold of them if you need to do so.
- Reach out to experts: You might need one or more experts to help prove certain parts of your claim. For example, a medical expert can help demonstrate the severity of your injuries, the pain that you’ve experienced, and your need for ongoing treatment. An accident reconstruction expert can help you determine who is to blame for the wreck by using physics and applying it to the evidence at hand.
- Keep a journal: The burden is on you to show the extent of your damages. Although economic harm might seem easy enough to prove, noneconomic damages, like pain and suffering and mental anguish, can be more difficult. By keeping a journal of how your injuries have impacted your life, though, you can capture a holistic picture of how you’ve been negatively impacted by your wreck. This can go a long way toward proving those noneconomic damages.
Are you ready to fight for the compensation that you deserve?
The outcome of a truck accident lawsuit can shape your future for years to come. That’s why you should be prepared to fight for the results that you deserve. We know that can be a stressful thought, but you can find the support that you need from an experienced personal injury attorney.