Los Angeles truck and motorcycle attorney
Both end worse than a normal car accident, for opposite reasons. A loaded truck can weigh 80,000 pounds, and the trucking company has people working the case the same day. On a motorcycle nothing protects you, and then the insurer calls you reckless.
Truck cases
Jackknife
The trailer swings out from the cab, usually after hard braking, speed or a bad road. It blocks lanes and often takes out several cars.
Rollovers
Speed, a sharp turn or a badly stacked load. What looks like driver error often turns out to be the loading or the training.
Underride
A car goes under the trailer. Often fatal, and it raises whether the truck had the guards it was required to have.
Cargo loaded badly
Cargo that shifted, spilled or fell. The shipper or loading company is often liable too.
Wide turns and blind spots
Trucks have huge blind spots and wide turns most drivers don’t expect. Fault usually comes down to witnesses and where the truck was.
Fatigue and hours-of-service violations
Federal rules limit how long a trucker can drive without rest. When fatigue is involved, the driver’s logs are the case.
Bad maintenance
Worn brakes, a blowout, lights that didn’t work. That can put the trucking company or a maintenance contractor on the hook too.
Motorcycle cases
Left turns across your path
The most common motorcycle case. A car turns left in front of you because the driver didn’t see you or misjudged your speed.
Lane changes into you
A driver moves over without checking the lane.
Lane splitting
Lane splitting is legal in California. The other driver’s insurer will still argue it caused the crash, and often that argument is the whole case.
Rear-end collisions
Nothing protects you from the car behind. A crash that would dent a car’s bumper puts a rider in the hospital.
Dooring
A parked car’s door opens into your path.
Road hazards
Potholes, ridges, gravel, debris. Things a car wouldn’t notice can put a bike down. If the road was badly maintained, the claim may be against the agency responsible.
Defective parts
A part that failed because of a manufacturing or design defect. That’s a product claim against the manufacturer, on top of any claim against a driver.
What we know from the other side
- Truck evidence disappears on a schedule
- Trucks record data: engine data, driver logs, dispatch records, maintenance history. Most of it’s deleted on a routine schedule unless someone demands in writing that it be kept. The trucking company’s investigator is often at the scene the same day. Getting that letter out early often decides the case.
- Adjusters assume riders are reckless
- Adjusters and juries tend to assume anyone on a motorcycle was speeding. Joseph Johnson has sat on the other side while that was argued. You beat it with physical evidence.
What we do on these cases
Send a letter right away demanding the trucking company keep its engine data, driver logs and dispatch records.
Find everyone responsible: the driver, the trucking company, the loader, the maintenance contractor, a parts manufacturer.
Apply the federal trucking safety rules wherever they fit.