Truck Accidents

If you are injured in a commercial trucking wreck, you need professional legal assistance. Contact the attorneys at Altman Legal Group as soon as possible to protect your rights. We have experience in handling truck injury cases. The trucking company and its insurance carrier have experienced attorneys on their side. So should you.

With offices in Oklahoma and Texas our personal injury lawyers are ready to serve you. Call us today at 1-800-772-0828.

We depend on truckers for nearly all the goods we buy. In general, truckers are the most experienced and safest drivers on the road [Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA)  report]. Large trucks are involved in less than 4% of all motor vehicle crashes. However, driver error is responsible for one fourth of all truck accidents. And when a truck is involved in an accident, it is three times more likely to be fatal. And almost 80% of those killed in crashes with a large truck were the people in the other vehicle. More than two thirds of the trucks involved in crashes are semi trucks.

A trafficwreck involving a commercial truck, such as an eighteen-wheeler or other large freight carrier, can be much more catastrophic than an ordinary car wreck. A typical fully-loaded large commercial truck can weigh 80,000 pounds or more, while an average passenger automobile weighs approximately 3,000 pounds. Because of this size disparity, and due to the basic laws of physics, any collision between a commercial truck or bus and another vehicle is likely to result in serious, even fatal, injuries.

In 2006 alone, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that there were 385,000 large truck wrecks resulting in 4,995 deaths and 106,000 injuries. That’s exactly why the Federal government enacted hundreds of pages of specialized laws that apply solely to commercial trucks and passenger buses. You need a personal injury attorney that is well versed in those laws. You need the attorneys at Altman Legal Group.

Trucking companies try many ways to skirt the rules and increase profits, including:

• Imposing unrealistic delivery schedules that may require drivers to speed or forge logbooks to drive for longer hours than legally permitted
• Overloading trucks, which can make starting, stopping, or steering them difficult
• Not checking drivers' backgrounds
• Performing minimal maintenance on trucks

Unfortunately, there are too many truck drivers on the road who are not operating safely. The economics of the trucking industry does not always encourage safe operation. In order to make a living driving a truck, some drivers drive for too many hours without enough rest or fail to take the truck off the road for necessary maintenance and repairs. In the trucking industry – if the wheels aren’t rolling, the truck driver and the trucking company are not making money. This is a hazard not only to the driver who may be breaking safety rules and regulations, but also to all other drivers and passengers on the road.

The use of cell phones while driving is increasing every day and studies show that drivers who text while driving are as dangerous as drunk drivers. Even simply talking on a cell phone greatly increases the odds of causing a wreck. Truck drivers being distracted by the use of their cell phones is many times a factor in the cause of a wreck or collision.

The trucking accident , collision and  wreck lawyers in Texas and Oklahoma at the ALTMAN LEGAL GROUP have the legal expertise necessary to represent clients who have been injured in a collision involving a: