Who is responsible for a truck crash?

If you are injured in a crash with another car, you would typically seek to hold the driver responsible for your injuries.

You’d look for ways to prove they, not you, were to blame. Or at least that they were more at fault than you.

You can do that in a crash with a truck, too, as the trucker has ultimate control of their vehicle.

Yet truck crash injuries can be so catastrophic that you might also need to look beyond the driver in order to get sufficient compensation.

Here are some others who might have been at fault in the crash:

A garage that worked on the truck

Trucks have a lot of parts and do a lot of miles. They, therefore, require a lot of maintenance. Even one oversight by the mechanic, such as failing to tighten a wheel nut, might be enough to cause the driver to lose control.

A parts manufacturer

Truck parts need to be hard-wearing. The huge stress placed on them could cause a substandard part to fail. That might mean a piece comes off and hits you, or it suddenly affects the rig’s handling, and the truck veers into you.

The trucking company

If a driver is employed, rather than being an owner-operator, the employer may have done something wrong that caused or at least contributed to the crash.

For example, did they fail to ensure the truck was loaded properly? Did they push a driver to work beyond their legal hours or send a new driver on a route they didn’t have enough experience for?

Consider legal help to understand your options if injured in a truck crash.