If you were injured in a truck rear-end accident, you may be entitled to compensation. Large commercial trucks are everywhere on Texas highways, and they pose a threat to the safety of smaller passenger vehicles on the road.
In 2017, there were 469 fatal accidents that involved a rear-end accident with a passenger vehicle and a tractor-trailer truck, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Portner Bond, PLLC, which is located in Beaumont, Texas, helps truck rear-end accident victims across the Southeast Texas region get the compensation they are entitled to for the losses they have suffered.
With over 70 years of combined experience, the legal team at Portner Bond, PLLC can help you recover damages if you were rear-ended in a truck accident. Call (409) 838-4444 today to schedule a free consultation with a Beaumont truck rear-end accident attorney.
Why You Need a Lawyer
Rear-end accidents with large commercial trucks can be horrific events that result in major injuries or death. When you’re dealing with the aftermath of an accident of that magnitude, it is impossible to even think about – or be able to – try to start legal action against the truck driver who caused the accident and the trucking company they are employed by.
That’s why you need a competent truck rear-end accident attorney on your team as soon as possible after the accident happens. We will immediately start working on your case.
In most cases, your truck rear-end accident case will not make it to court because our lawyers work to reach a settlement with the insurance or trucking company before a trial takes place. While insurance companies try to offer low, one-time settlement payments to individuals who’ve been involved in truck rear-end accidents, in the end, they would rather pay a fair settlement negotiated by an attorney than to pay the higher costs of going to trial and possibly losing a jury verdict against them.
However, if no reasonable and fair settlement can be negotiated with the insurance company, our lawyers will not hesitate to take your case to court and work to ensure that fair compensation is awarded before the statute of limitations (two years from the date of the accident in Texas) runs out.
For the best opportunity of receiving a just settlement that will adequately compensate you for all of your losses from the truck rear-end accident you were involved in, you need an attorney now.
Why Hire Portner Bond, PLLC?
Portner Bond, PLLC lawyers are dedicated to helping every victim in our community who has been in a truck rear-end accident. Our lawyers, Trent Bond, Chris Portner, and Tom Kiehnhoff have 70 years of combined experience handling personal injury claims including those resulting from tractor-trailer accidents.
Portner Bond, PLLC values every citizen in the community where we also live and work, so we will fight passionately and diligently to help you get all the compensation you deserve for the losses you have had, including, among others, medical bills, property damage, lost time from work, physical suffering, mental anguish, and emotional suffering.
We have a track record of providing clients with results. We know that insurance companies try to take advantage of accident victims and withhold the compensation they deserve. We aren’t interested in representing large corporations and insurance companies. Instead, we’re interested in representing you and making sure that you get the justice that you deserve.
Common Causes for Truck Rear-End Accidents
In 2017, a total of 4,761 people were killed in crashes involving large trucks, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Most of those people who died were killed in Texas and most were occupants of passenger vehicles.
Driving on Texas highways can be very dangerous for passenger vehicle occupants when tractor-trailer truck drivers are not alert and paying careful attention to the road. Since tractor-trailer trucks weigh 20 to 30 times as much as passenger vehicles, they crash into smaller vehicles with significantly more momentum than a car of average size. The momentum from the crash can lead to serious injuries or death for passengers in smaller vehicles.
Truck drivers have an obligation to be extra cautious on the road because they are operating a vehicle that towers above other cars on the road. However, truck drivers are not always vigilant, and serious rear-end accidents can occur. Sometimes the accidents are the fault of the truck driver, and sometimes the trucking company bears the blame.
Tractor-trailers need more space to stop than small passenger vehicles. An 80,000-pound tractor-trailer truck traveling at 65 miles per hour needs the distance of about two football fields to make a complete stop. In comparison, a passenger vehicle weighing 4,000 pounds and traveling at the same speed of 65 miles per hour needs nearly the distance of one football field to make a complete stop. This means that it can be quite easy to rear end or be rear-ended by a tractor-trailer truck.
Brake lag is another factor that plays into the stopping distance for large trucks. While most passenger vehicles operate using hydraulic brakes, which are faster and more instantaneous, tractor-trailer trucks use air brakes, which have a lag time.
You can compare air brakes to a garden hose. When you turn on a hose, you have to wait for the water to travel through the hose before it comes out the other end. The same concept can be applied to a truck’s air breaks.
When a driver presses down on the brakes, air must build up in a truck’s triple-valve system before the brakes are applied. This lag time can have an impact on a driver’s ability to stop their truck in time to prevent a rear-end accident. However, a tractor-trailer truck driver has a duty to know how their vehicle operates without putting other drivers at risk.
When a trucker is driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, their motor skills, concentration, reaction time, and reasoning are impaired. Trucking is not an easy profession. Drivers work long hours and can be consumed by boredom and loneliness, which may lead them to abuse drugs and alcohol. Driving under the influence is incredibly dangerous, and that danger multiplies when you’re operating an 80,000-pound vehicle flying down the highway.
Truckers are allowed to drive for long hours without taking a break, and some even abuse the regulated hours and drive for long stretches of time than the law permits.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) found that truck driver who is behind the wheel for more than eight hours are twice as likely to crash. If a truck driver violated their hours-of-service regulations, the IIHS found that the driver was more likely to have caused the crash.
If you were involved in a rear-end crash with a large commercial truck, there is a chance that the driver was driving illegally beyond permitted hours. Truck drivers are not allowed to drive for more than 11 hours or drive after 14 hours since starting a duty shift until they take a 10-hour break, according to the IIHS.
Additionally, after eight hours of driving, truck drivers are required to take a 30-minute break.
Portner Bond, PLLC can look into every detail surrounding the truck rear-end accident to see if any of these rules and regulations were broken, and will include the results as part of your case to show negligence on the part of the truck driver.
Common Injuries in Truck Rear-End Accidents
If an 80,000-pound truck comes barreling into your 4,000-pound vehicle, the results will be devastating. Usually, after the impact, passengers, if they’re able, will check themselves for any injuries. However, an injury does not have to be visible to be serious and requires immediate and ongoing medical treatment.
Because of this, you should seek medical treatment right away. Not only are you protecting your health and life by doing so, but you are establishing a medical record that proves your injuries were a direct result of the truck rear-end accident.
Here are some of the most common injuries sustained in a rear-end trucking accident:
- Head and Brain Injuries – Injuries can be as mild as a concussion, which is when a person’s brain strikes the inside of the skull, or as serious as severe traumatic brain injury. Brain injuries aren’t always apparent at the scene of the accident, so watch for signs such as nausea, loss of balance, and confusion.
- Spinal Cord Injuries – The intense impact of a rear-end truck accident could damage the bones, muscles or nerves in the spinal cord. Injuries to the spinal cord can result in partial or full paralysis.
- Burns – Burns happen more often in accidents with commercial trucks than with passenger vehicles. Oftentimes, trucks are transporting flammable liquids, so fires can erupt at the point of impact. Burn injuries can be severe and are injuries that a person may never be able to fully recover.
- Internal Injuries – The blunt force trauma from a collision can cause internal injuries to vital organs. Also, broken ribs can puncture the lungs or cause other severe damage to the internal body.
- Death
Contact Portner Bond, PLLC Today
If you or a loved one has been injured or killed in a truck rear-end accident, you are experiencing extreme pain and trauma. Contact our lawyers at Portner Bond, PLLC as soon as possible, so we can get started on helping you recover the damages you are owed. Our lawyers will work tirelessly to gather all the evidence we need to build a successful case against a truck driver, a trucking company, and/or any other third party.
Contact us today at (409) 838-4444 to schedule a free consultation. If you can’t come to us, we’ll come to you.