Under Missouri state law, every licensed driver is responsible for keeping their focus completely on driving for every moment they spend behind the wheel, and commercial truck drivers are no exception. Unfortunately, because of the long hours they spend on the road, long-haul truckers are especially likely to engage in distracted driving, which means they may be more likely to cause accidents.
If you were involved in a collision with a distracted trucker, you may have a right to pursue civil compensation for your injuries. That said, filing a personal injury lawsuit can be a complicated and time-consuming process, and you’ll only benefit from seeking help from an experienced truck accident lawyer rather than trying to file a claim on your own.
Our team of legal advocates at OnderLaw has experience seeking justice for those seriously injured in distracted driving truck accidents in Webster Groves. We are committed to standing up for the rights of our neighbors and community members, and we will not let a negligent trucker or trucking company get away with the harm they caused you. We don’t just take on cases; we take on causes. Allow us to take on yours.
Virtually every successful lawsuit or settlement demand over a truck accident in Missouri is based on the legal principle of negligence. Someone who is negligent is liable for an injury and can be made to pay for injury-related losses if their actions or inactions directly caused that injury. Since every driver has a duty to pay attention to their surroundings and follow the law while driving, distracted driving that leads to a wreck is a textbook example of legally actionable negligence.
However, proving that a truck driver was distracted can be deceptively complicated. While certain types of distracted driving, such as texting behind the wheel, are explicitly illegal and can be proven through evidence like cell phone records, many other forms of distraction—from eating and drinking, to checking a GPS, to simply glancing away from the road at just the wrong moment—don’t produce much physical or documentary evidence that can be folded into a civil claim.
Fortunately, it’s not always necessary to prove that a truck driver caused a crash in Webster Groves specifically because they were driving while distracted. For example, if a trucker rolls through a stop sign and hits your car in an intersection, it doesn’t matter whether they did it because they were distracted or for some other reason. The fact that they broke a traffic law and caused a wreck as a direct result would likely be enough to build a civil claim. A reliable lawyer from our firm can review the circumstances of your case and collect evidence to hold the person or party that caused you harm accountable.
A comprehensive civil claim against a negligent truck driver or trucking company can seek payments for both economic and non-economic effects of an accident, including:
The exact value of this type of claim will vary based on the specific injuries you suffered, what kind of insurance coverage both you and the at-fault truck driver have, and whether you have assistance from an experienced distracting driving truck crash attorney in Webster Groves.
Tractor-trailer collisions tend to cause especially severe losses compared to most other types of automobile wrecks, and they are tougher to recover from in financial terms as well. Even if you have extensive evidence proving that an inattentive trucker is directly to blame for your injuries, you’ll likely have a very tough time getting that trucker’s employer and insurance provider to pay you fairly if you go up against them alone.
At OnderLaw, we are on your side and by your side every step of the way. Call today to learn how we can help after distracted driving truck accidents in Webster Groves.
