The roads of American today are far from a safe place – and one of the main contributors to this fact is truck accidents. Unlike regular car accidents, the huge scale and bulk of delivery trucks make them much more likely to seriously injure or kill an accident victim. The chance of life-altering conditions such as paralysis or brain damage also increases significantly with this type of vehicle accident. Not only this, but there are a whole host of reasons why trucking accidents are more likely to occur than a regular car accident.
UPS truck drivers are just one of the many trucking companies on our roads today, but they still make up for a good percentage of trucking accident cases. If you have been involved in a North Port truck accident involving UPS, you will need the help of experienced injury attorneys to face off against their dedicated team of lawyers and claims adjusters. Here at The Law Place, we believe that no trucking company should have the upper hand in an injury claim simply because they have access to a greater amount of resources than their accident victims.
The team of truck accident lawyers at The Law Place in North Port, Florida, have a combined level of over 75 years of experience working on cases and accidents similar to yours. We are happy to offer you a free consultation, round the clock, to help you get your maximum level of compensation. All you need to do is call us for a free consultation to get your legal journey started.
Prospective clients can contact a personal injury from The Law Place now by calling (941) 444-4444!
UPS Vehicle Accident Statistics
UPS is the largest trucking company in the world. As such, they are responsible for a large percentage of truck accident cases. In America, the company has its headquarters based in Atlanta – although their trucks operate a delivery service spanning the entire country. This means that there are still a considerable amount of truck accident victims in North Port, Florida.
The Safety Measurement System contains a wealth of federal data, which allows us to get a good idea of the scale and safety of various trucking companies. This system shows us that UPS boasts a staggering fleet of 125,949 vehicles driven by 118,498 individual truck drivers. When you consider the scale of this company, you can see how many accidents can occur.
However, we can go further. The system also makes us aware of 4,488 violations with respect to inspections, 1,891 incidents of truck drivers driving unsafely, and a grand total of 2,512 reported truck accidents. When we think about how much more severe an injury is likely to be in a truck accident case than a car accident, we can imagine the true extent of these 2,512 separate accidents.
The UPS trucking company is also guilty of 9 counts of alcohol or controlled substance violations and 218 violations for truck driver fitness to work. These statistics are a small slice of a larger problem, which plagues almost every trucking company. We will explore this more in the next sections.
If you were involved in a North Port truck accident that makes up any of the above statistics, a personal injury lawyer from The Law Place is here to help achieve the level of compensation that you deserve.
The General Reasons a Truck Accident Is More Common Than a Car Accident
Our truck accident attorneys have seen enough victims of negligence to know that truck accidents often result from a combination of genuine accidents and less innocent circumstances.
The more innocent possible reasons for a North Port truck accident are as follows:
- Trucks are often larger, more complicated vehicles. This means more can go wrong with them. This is especially true with vehicles such as pickup trucks, tractor-trailers, and box trucks.
- Trucks are also more at risk of falling victim to complicating factors, such as poor visibility and adverse weather conditions.
- A truck accident has a much higher chance of affecting multiple victims, as a truck can easily cause a multi-car pile-up.
If you or one of your family members has suffered a truck or tractor-trailer accident, one of our personal injury attorneys can help you.
The Unsafe Practices of Trucking Companies
There are also less innocent factors that contribute to the likelihood of a catastrophic truck accident. Often these are not the fault of the actual specific truck driver, but more the fault of the company who employs them.
Delivery truck drivers are often paid by the mile and suffer terrible working conditions. This behavior by their employer pushes them to put other people at risk in order to earn a fair wage.
The ways a trucking company often contributes to the likelihood of an accident are as follows:
- The payment per mile scheme employed by most trucking companies encourages fatigued driving by encouraging the driver to minimize breaks and periods of sleep.
- This scheme also encourages the driver to cut corners on those essential tasks that do not convert into miles traveled, such as planning routes, ensuring cargo is safely loaded, and undertaking routine vehicle maintenance.
- This scheme also encourages coping techniques such as drugs and alcohol, which lead to intoxicated driving and its associated risks.
- Companies also often hire a driver without conducting the necessary in-depth screening process. This leads to an increased likelihood of employing a driver with a history of reckless driving or substance abuse.
- Companies may also skimp on maintaining their truck fleet, increasing the number of victims due to technical errors and equipment failures.
As such, it falls to truck accident attorneys to try and hold these companies to account and keep America’s roads a safer place.
Each victim who uses their personal injury attorney to raise a claim makes our roads safer by showing the people in charge that their negligence and corner-cutting will cost them in the end.
Do I Have to Raise My Case Against the Truck Driver or the Company Who Are the Truck Owner?
As we have just seen, many truck accidents are the result of negligence and unfair employment practices on the part of the trucking company rather than their driver.
If you feel guilty about the idea of claiming against the truck driver because of this, there is good news for you. You are able to raise a case against the driver or the company that employs them – and in some cases, both parties.
The truck driver is also free to employ a truck accident attorney to fight their corner against the company and raise a claim if they believe the company’s negligence led to their accident.
How Is Proving Negligence Different in a Truck Accident?
Just like in a car accident, your personal injury lawyer will need to prove that the truck driver or their employer owed you a duty of care, then violated this duty of care, and that this violation led to the injuries you or your loved one sustained.
The general legal information relating to negligence for drivers is contained in Florida Statute 768.81.
However, there is a unique aspect of a truck accident that makes this process easier for personal injury attorneys. This is the presence of the truck’s black box.
Just like in an airplane, each truck contains a black box that monitors key information, such as traveling speed, breaking patterns, and the force of impact – among other things.
This box is the perfect tool for both proving the offending party was responsible for your injuries and also for demonstrating the extent of your injuries to the insurance company. As such, a delivery truck company will often try to get out of sharing this information.
This is where your experienced truck accident lawyer comes in. The truck accident lawyers from The Law Place will fight tooth and nail to acquire all of the key evidence and information necessary to maximize your compensation claim amount.
Common Personal Injury Examples Resulting From a Truck Accident
We have already spoken about how the injuries resulting from a truck accident in Florida have a much higher likelihood of being severe, life-impacting, or even fatal.
The following is a list of injuries often seen by our truck accident lawyers:
- Back injuries, including damage to the spine. These are especially dangerous as they can lead to paralysis or severe limiting of body movement.
- Broken bones or complex fractures, which can impact your ability to move for the rest of your life in more severe cases.
- Head and brain injuries, whose complications can cause severe mental handicaps or emotional complications.
- Blunt force trauma injuries, such as internal bleeding.
- Lacerations, cuts, abrasions, and burns.
- Disfigurement, scarring, and amputation of limbs.
- Non-physical complications, such as emotional distress, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, sleep conditions, and flashbacks.
The specifics of the laws surrounding claims for serious injuries are contained in Florida Statute 316.027.
If you or a loved one has suffered any of the above injuries (or a type of injury not listed) as a result of a Florida truck accident, you should employ a truck accident attorney from The Law Place to maximize your compensation.
Our office phone lines are open all of the time, so scheduling a free consultation that works around your busy schedule could not be easier.
Which Types of Damages Can You Claim From a Truck Accident?
There are a number of different types of compensation that your truck accident lawyers may be able to help you claim for, depending on the specifics of your individual accident case.
The following sections will discuss these types of compensation and give you helpful information about what, if anything, you can do to help your lawyers maximize your compensation claim.
Claiming for Property Damage
If any of your personal possessions were damaged in the truck accident, as well as your vehicle, then your lawyers can help you recover their value.
To help prove the extent of the property damage, make sure you use your mobile phone to take photographs, from multiple angles, of your vehicle and its contents. This can help prove to the insurance companies how much compensation you should be owed.
Obviously, you should only take these photographs when you are absolutely sure it safe to do so.
Claiming for Your Medical Expenses
Truck accidents are the source of many injuries which require the expert treatment of a hospital. We probably don’t need to tell you that one of the leading causes of bankruptcy in America is medical debt. However, your lawyer can help you recover these costs.
In order to stand the best chance of getting your medical bills reimbursed, you should retain all documentation and bills from your treatment.
Additionally, if you don’t want to risk the underhanded tricks often used by insurance companies, you should seek a copy of your full medical history. This will prevent the common tactic of the insurance company attempting to claim that the lasting impacts of your injuries were, in fact, pre-existing conditions.
Claiming for Pain and Suffering
Another type of compensation your attorney can help you to win is pain and suffering. Pain and suffering is the technical term given to the calculation of how long your injuries took to recover from and the amount of pain and lasting complications this process involved.
Pain and suffering damages account for things that impact the quality of your life, such as disabilities, mental complications, and disfigurement as a result of your truck accident injuries.
Claiming for Wrongful Death
The very worst thing that can happen as a result of a truck accident is a loss of life. However, if this does happen, filing a wrongful death claim can give you some recourse.
No attorney at The Law Place thinks that money will make you feel any better in your time of grief. However, losing a contributor to your family income can cloud your processing of their loss with petty financial worries. Unexpected surprise costs such as funerary and burial expenses can only worsen this.
A wrongful death claim is designed to calculate an amount of compensation based on lost wages, loss of consortium, and the expenses related to your loss.
More information on the legal specifics of filing wrongful death claims can be found in Florida Statute 768.21.
How Long After Truck Accidents Are You Entitled to Make a Claim?
In Florida, the statute of limitations dictates how long after an accident you can make a claim for your injuries or other complications.
The exact specifications of Florida’s statute limitations for motor vehicle accidents are contained in Florida Statute 95.11.
This statute clearly states that the injured party has four years from the exact date of their accident to make a claim to recover compensation for their damages.
So Is There Any Rush When Raising a Personal Injury Case With an Attorney?
You would be forgiven for thinking that you can be relaxed in raising your case since you have four years in which to do this. However, this could not be less true.
We advise our clients to raise their cases as soon as possible for a number of reasons. Firstly, the more time that passes, the more chance there is of essential evidence or eye-witness accounts becoming lost or unavailable.
Secondly, your attorney team will not be the only legal team on the ground. This is especially true when it comes to truck accidents. It is likely that the trucking company has an experienced team of lawyers working on their case as a defendant, attempting to gather information to disprove their level of liability.
The same is true of the insurance companies involved. Any insurance company will try to ensure that they pay out as little as possible in compensation to the party making a claim. They usually have teams of attorneys and claims adjusters with a wealth of experience to do this.
By raising your case earlier, you give your legal team more time to build a solid case against the rival legal teams of the trucking company and the insurance companies. This, in turn, increases the likelihood of you maximizing your compensation.
How Much Will a Lawyer From The Law Place Cost You?
Many people are put off seeking legal help because of the reputation legal fees have for being expensive. Truck accidents come with many financially complicating factors, such as vehicle replacement, medical bills, and lost wages – so this fear makes sense.
However, here at The Law Place, we believe that no one should have to worry about the financial aspects of seeking the compensatory payout that they deserve. That’s why all our accident attorneys work on a contingency fee basis.
What this means is that you will pay absolutely nothing until your settlement is finalized, when the fees are subtracted from the total amount. This also means that should your case be unsuccessful, for whatever reason, you will pay nothing at all.
All of the contingency work undertaken by The Law Place is monitored by the State Bar Association, so you don’t have to worry about any tricks, hidden fees, or surprise costs.
Contact The Law Place Today
Have you or a member of your family been involved in an accident involving trucks or their drivers in the past four years? If so, it is highly likely that you are entitled to make a claim for compensation.
The team at The Law Place has over 75 years of experience in personal injury law. We have a proven track record of maximizing the compensation that victims can expect from their injuries. Don’t let the complexities of Florida’s personal injury law or the underhanded tricks of insurance companies get in the way of what is rightfully yours. Call The Law Place in North Port, Florida today.
What’s more, we also offer full transparency with a free consultation scheme. All you need to do is give us a call at any time of the day or night to receive a free consultation and case evaluation, which will include a legal roadmap of the path to your financial justice. All our calls are completely confidential, not to mention at no-obligation. This means that seeking free, impartial legal advice and getting an idea of the best course of action for your situation could not be easier.
To book your free consultation, all you need to do is call (941) 444-4444.