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Reading Truck Accident Lawyer
Personal Injury Law Firm Handling Truck Accident Claims For Clients Throughout Pennsylvania
If you or a family member are a victim of a truck driver’s negligence, call an experienced Reading truck accident lawyer for help today. We fight for your needs and to get you the compensation you and your family deserve.
Large commercial vehicles like semi-tractor trailers, 18-wheelers, box trucks, and other big rigs are some of the most dangerous vehicles on the roads. Even low-speed collisions can result in serious truck accident injuries. Unfortunately, most big rig crashes are not low-speed.
Many are at normal or high speed, resulting in severe injuries to innocent people. Victims injured in any type of trucking wreck may be entitled to compensation for pain and suffering, medical bills, lost wages, and other damages caused by the wreck. Our Reading truck accident attorneys can help obtain these results for you to ensure that your rights to compensation are well-protected.
If you’re suffering from an injury or have lost a loved one in a preventable truck accident, let Larry Pitt be your 18-wheeler accident lawyer in Reading, PA.
Our firm offers victims and the families of truck wrecks:
- FREE consultations and case evaluations, with no obligation to sign up
- Our attorney’s fees are only paid after we recover compensation for you in a settlement, court verdict, or award—meaning there is a no-win, no-fee guarantee
- Our legal fees are also only a percentage of the total recovery, meaning there are no out-of-pocket expenses
- We pay the upfront costs and disbursements of litigation, which are only reimbursed if we recover your compensation, and
- Our firm offers personalized representation to each client, not the cookie-cutter approach of some personal injury law firms.
GET A FREE CONSULTATION WITH LARRY PITT
We’re the Firm Your Friends and Family Trust to Protect Them After a Truck Accident
Dealing with the after-effects of a truck collision is hard; choosing the right lawyer for your needs shouldn’t be. Larry Pitt & Associates offers comprehensive and aggressive representation to truck crash victims in Pennsylvania. Please call 888-PITT-LAW or fill out our contact form to schedule a free consultation with a truck accident lawyer today. We are proud to serve clients throughout:
- Lehigh County
- Lancaster County
- Northampton County
How to Win a Trucking Accident Case in Pennsylvania
Personal injury cases such as truck wreck cases are generally based on negligence. This requires a victim to establish that the truck driver, trucking company, or a third party was negligent and a substantial factor in causing the crash. Truck accident victims must also establish that their injuries were related to the 18-wheeler wreck. Proving these factors means establishing liability against the defendant(s).
The two most common ways to do this are through a common-law (judge-made law) or a statutory law (legislatively-made law) cause of action (or a claim). In most instances, trucking accident victims can bring both types of claims.
Proving Negligence Through Common Law
Negligence is essentially the failure to act reasonably. It occurs when a party fails to act like a reasonable person would and unnecessarily increases the chance of harm to a foreseeable person. Thus, all individuals owe others a duty of care to act in a reasonable manner to avoid unnecessary harm to others. When that harm occurs due to unreasonable conduct, it is likely due to negligence.
A truck driver or trucking company may not be acting reasonably when they are:
- Speeding
- Driving aggressively
- Drunk driving or drugged driving
- Distracted driving
- Failing to properly maintain a vehicle
- Improperly turning or merging
- Carrying unsafe cargo, improperly loading cargo, or overloaded cargo
- Other conduct that a reasonably prudent driver would not do.
Proving Negligence Through Statutory Law
Acting reasonably is not enough. As you will notice from the list above, most of the actions that an unreasonably behaving truck driver or trucking company may do are also violations of the vehicle and traffic code. Where the violation of a traffic law was meant to 1) protect a certain person from harm and 2) prevent a certain harm, the doctrine of negligence per se can be used to automatically establish liability against a truck driver and trucking company.
In order for negligence per se to apply, a victim must establish the following:
- A Pennsylvania trucking law was violated by the defendant
- The victim was in the class of persons who sought to be protected by the violated law, and
- The victim’s harm was the type of harm sought to be prevented by the violated law.
If these elements are met, a victim may be able to establish liability against a truck driver and trucking company without proving anything other than causation and damages. This makes it harder for a defendant to negotiate a settlement in bad faith or fight a case in court.
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA)
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has enacted a comprehensive matrix of rules and regulations that can be used against a negligent truck driver or trucking company by using the doctrine of negligence per se.
However, the violation of a regulation is not an automatic finding of negligence like the violation of a PA statute. Rather, the violation of a regulation is only “evidence” of negligence against a defendant. This is still very helpful for a victim to help prove an 18-wheeler accident case in Reading, PA.
What Our Clients Say
Reading Truck Accident FAQs
What are the Most Common Causes of Truck Crashes?
When you live in a city like Reading, you’re surrounded by trucks and people at all times. As far as the law is concerned, the leading cause of a serious truck accident is “negligence.”
In a truck accident case, you will have to prove that your injuries are the result of the negligent behavior of another driver or another person or entity, such as a manufacturer.
A truck accident can happen any time – day or night – and for any number of reasons. Reading truck accidents are often the result of:
- Tailgating
- Speeding
- Driving aggressively (road rage)
- Failing to obey traffic signals
- Drowsy driving
- Distracted driving e.g. using a mobile device (texting, talking, emailing)
- Adjusting the radio or GPS/Maps
- Rubbernecking
- Interacting with other passengers
- Looking for an object in the vehicle while driving
- Drunk driving or driving under the influence (DUI)
- Truck drivers are unable to see around blind spots, like double-parked cars or delivery trucks
- Stop-and-go traffic patterns
- Trying to “beat” the light, either on the straight-away or around corners
- Wrong-way collisions on one-way roads
- Driving at night
While this is a fairly comprehensive list, there may be another reason for a truck accident. If you have been injured by or while in a vehicle, you may have a truck accident claim. Have an experienced Reading truck accident attorney evaluate your case.
What Kinds of Accidents are Covered by a Truck Accident Lawsuit?
In any case where the other driver was negligent, you are entitled to recover damages. There are numerous types of truck accidents that can occur on the roadways of Reading, however, the common ones are:
- Head-on collision
- Side impact or T-bone crash
- Rear-end collision
- Rollover accident
- Intersection crash
In any of the above crashes, a person may sustain serious injury or even death. There may be economic damages such as medical expenses and lost wages or non-economic damages like emotional distress or pain and suffering.
Your Reading truck accident lawyers will evaluate your case, where and how it occurred, and advise you on how to build the strongest case and recover money for your devastating injuries.
What Kind of Monetary Damages Can I Recover in a Truck Accident Case?
There is no simple answer to this question. Each case has to be evaluated by an experienced truck accident attorney to determine the potential amount of damages an injured person can recover.
Initially, your Reading truck accident lawyer will weigh how severe your injuries were; your age and health at the time of the accident; whether you have a job or not and if you were the sole provider for the family, and how many members you supported; whether you had any fault in the accident; and the amount and type of insurance you have.
In a truck accident case, you may be able to recover economic, noneconomic, and punitive damages.
In Pennsylvania, there are two main types of damages: compensatory damages and punitive damages:
- Compensatory damages are designed to make you whole after an accident. You may suffer both economic and non-economic damages.
- Economic damages will compensate you for financial costs incurred as a result of the accident. The idea is to “make you whole” or in other words, put you back in the financial place you were in before the crash. Such damages would include:
- Present and future medical expenses which include ambulance fees, hospitalization, surgery, medication, medical equipment, surgeries, and doctor visits
- Physical therapy and other necessary and related rehabilitation treatment and costs
- The cost of replacing or repairing damaged property
- Lost Income and wages
- Loss of future earnings
- Temporary or permanent disability
These types of damages are relatively straightforward. So long as they are related to the accident, they are proven by the medical bills and expenses incurred.
Non-economic damages by their nature are more difficult to calculate. This is where pain and suffering and emotional distress are covered. These damages include:
- Loss of ability to work
- Loss of future earnings
- Loss of enjoyment of life
- Loss of consortium (deprivation of family relationship including affection or personal physical reactions)
- Emotional pain and distress
These damages require a different level of proof than the economic damages as there are no bills to prove the amount. This does not mean the damages are any less real. They require the experience and knowledge of a truck accident lawyer. An experienced attorney will know how the insurance company may weigh a personal injury claim for these non-economic damages and be able to evaluate what kind of demand they may make and/or argue for in a settlement conference or at a trial.
If the person who caused your accident and injuries was operating a vehicle under the influence of drugs or alcohol, drove recklessly, engaged in grossly negligent behavior, or had a willful disregard for the safety of other parties, punitive damages may be awarded. This will be determined by your Reading truck accident attorney and by the court.
What are the Most Common Types of Truck Accident Cases?
The most common types of truck accidents include rear-ending collisions, side-swipe crashes, jackknife accidents, rollover accidents, underride collisions, and head-on collisions.
