Truck Accidents

Las Vegas Truck Accident Lawyers

Advocating for Victims of Truck Accidents in Nevada

At Bertoldo Carter Smith & Cullen, we know that semi-truck transit is an important element of Nevada commerce and growth. Our Las Vegas truck accident lawyers also understand how dangerous these large, cargo-carrying vehicles can be to passenger vehicles that share the roadways with them.

If you have been injured in a truck accident, are caring for a family member who has, or have lost a loved one in a truck accident, our firm can help you pursue the financial recovery you deserve. We know just how devastating these accidents are, which is why we work tirelessly to defend the rights of accident victims.

Our aggressive approach to negotiation and litigation has allowed us to secure millions of dollars on behalf of our clients. We are ready to fight for you, too. If you are unable to travel to our office, we can meet you in the hospital or at your home. There are no attorneys’ fees when you work with our firm unless we are successful in recovering compensation for you.

Why Do Trucking Collisions Happen?

Drug use, truck driver fatigue, inattention, aggressive driving, and following too closely are examples of truck driver errors that may result in severe injuries and fatalities, more often among the drivers of smaller vehicles in the collisions than among the drivers of large (over 10,000-pound) trucks.

Truck Driver Negligence

Many types of truck driver errors are studied by traffic safety experts. In a 2005 study by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the following are the major contributing factors to truck driver errors:

Aggressive driving behavior (tailgating, weaving, other)
False assumption of other road users’ actions
Prescription drug use
Over-the-counter drug use
Traveling too fast for conditions
Unfamiliar with roadway
Inadequate surveillance
Fatigue
Work-related pressure
Illegal maneuver
Inattention
External distraction factors
Inadequate evasive action
Unfamiliar with vehicle
Following too closely

Tire Blowouts

Tire blowouts are one of the most devastating defects a commercial truck can experience. Even though 18-wheelers have so many wheels, losing just one tire so abruptly can make the truck driver lose complete control of the vehicle and cause a crash.

Contributing factors to tire blowouts include:

Inflation issues: Tires that have not been inflated enough are misshapen and can tear while in transit. Tires that have been overinflated are more likely to burst when nicked or when traveling quickly across bumps.
Debris: Loose debris in the road is a hazard for all drivers and their tires. Truck drivers sometimes assume their larger vehicles can coast right over debris without an issue, but this is not true. Hitting even a small piece of wood, concrete, plastic, etc. can dig into a tire and burst it.
Overloaded trailers: An overloaded trailer puts an excessive amount of weight on the tires and brakes of a big rig. The heavier the truck, the more force is needed to bring it to a complete stop, which involves the tires experiencing more friction when grinding against asphalt. As time goes on, the treading will wear away until it fails.
Speeding: Similar to overloaded trailers contributing to truck tire blowouts, speeding does, too. The faster a truck travels, the more stress it puts on the tire while it is in motion and while it is braking. Specifically, a truck traveling at 75 miles per hour puts an inordinately high amount of stress on the tires, making it far more likely to rip and suffer a blowout.

Overloaded Trucks

Overloaded trucks and trailers are a serious problem on roads and highways in the Las Vegas area and across the United States. A major cause of highway accidents, overloaded trucks such as semi-trailers and logging trucks can overturn, fail to stop on time, or get out of the truck driver’s control. Thousands of fatalities and severe injuries have been traced directly to overloaded trucks, and the Las Vegas truck accident attorneys at the offices of Bertoldo Carter Smith & Cullen have seen the damages first-hand.

In addition, an overloaded truck is difficult to control and maneuver, and even more difficult to stop once it is moving at highway speeds. Rollovers of large trucks that were overloaded or improperly loaded are common. Overloads may also contribute to truck accidents in which additional factors such as bad weather and a fatigued driver create the “perfect storm” for a serious crash.

Rear-End Collisions

The most common types of large truck accidents are:

Large truck hitting the back end of a non-truck vehicle such as a car
Non-truck hitting the back of a large truck
One truck hitting another truck from behind

Truck accident injuries resulting from these kinds of collisions are often very serious.

Large trucks can be difficult to maneuver quickly, especially when they are carrying a heavy load (or are overloaded trucks). It is not easy to brake and stop a large truck when it is moving at freeway speeds. When a large truck hits the back of a smaller vehicle, it often runs over the smaller vehicle. Such truck accident injury cases often involve fatalities.

Common Truck Accident Injuries

At Bertoldo Carter Smith & Cullen, our Las Vegas truck accident attorneys have decades of experience in representing catastrophic personal injury victims whose lives have been disrupted by devastating 18-wheeler accidents.

The most common truck accident injuries include:

Traumatic brain injuries
Burn injuries
Crushed or broken bones
Joint, ligament, and muscle damage
Internal bleeding
Neck and spine injuries
Organ damage

Semi-trucks can weigh up to 80,000 pounds, making a passenger vehicle no match for its size and force. When truck accidents occur in Las Vegas, our experienced lawyers want to help hold the negligent person or party accountable for their reckless or wrongful behavior.

Depending on the severity of your injuries, your need for medical care and the time you spend away from work can last weeks, months, or even a lifetime. Recovering the total expenses related to your injuries without an accomplished Las Vegas truck accident lawyer by your side will be difficult, if not impossible. Do not let the insurance company take advantage of you! Allow our experienced attorneys to help speed up the recovery process and pursue results on your behalf.

Who Is Liable for Truck Accidents?

This is a complicated issue, which is why having a skilled truck accident attorney by your side is so important. There are several factors that can lead to a truck accident and, in most cases, only a legal professional can investigate the cause thoroughly to determine who is at fault for the accident.

Some of the leading causes of truck accidents include:

Truck driver negligence

Driving while distracted
Speeding
Driving while intoxicated/under the influence of alcohol or drugs
Inexperience
Fatigued driving/falling asleep at the wheel
General carelessness
Traffic law violations

Negligent trucking company practices

Encouraging drivers to forge hours-of-service logs
Overloading trucks/loading cargo improperly
Pressuring drivers to meet unrealistic timelines/quotas
Failing to conduct background checks on new hire
Failing to provide adequate training
Improper and/or negligent supervision
Failing to perform alcohol/drug testing

Defective truck parts

Tires
Braking systems
Reflective strips/lights
Brake lights
Horns

Third-party negligence

Another motorist behaving careless or recklessly
Defective road design or construction

This is not an exhaustive list. As you can see, proving what happened can be extremely difficult, as can proving who is legally liable. However, each of these factors will be explored by our Las Vegas truck accident attorneys to ensure each party is investigated thoroughly. This allows us to hold all liable parties responsible for their role in the crash.

How a Nevada Truck Accident Attorney Can Help

Your injuries are evidence. If you have been hurt in a truck accident, someone is responsible for your well-being going forward, and our partnerships with industry professionals will help us thoroughly build your case.

Our firm employs a skilled team of:

Accident inspection experts
Automotive engineers and technology experts
Forensic accident reconstruction professionals
Law enforcement officials
Medical professionals
Private and public compliance officials
Traffic concentration and flow technicians

Together with these experts, our attorneys can uncover the full extent of your injuries and associated damages. From there, we can aggressively negotiate a settlement that is intended to cover you for all of your current and ongoing costs. If a fair settlement cannot be reached, we are ready to take your case to trial.

Working to Uncover the Full Extent of Your Injuries & Damages

Our truck accident attorney in Las Vegas work with our clients to ensure their injuries are fully accounted for; we do this by partnering with a team of physicians and medical experts to assess the full extent of our clients’ injuries. This allows us to then build comprehensive personal injury cases that cover all of our clients’ damages, including current and future medical costs and related expenses.

If you are hurt in a truck accident in Las Vegas and do not have health insurance, you are likely worried about the type of medical care you will be able to receive, as well as how you will be able to pay for that care. Our experienced truck accident lawyers can provide the legal advice you need to get the medical care you deserve. Your injuries should never go untreated—our truck accident lawyers in Las Vegas will provide the representation you need to recuperate all of your medical costs, starting from the time of the collision through your entire recovery.

Negotiating with a single liable party requires an aggressive approach to producing results, and our truck collision attorneys have decades of experience producing results that have positively changed our clients’ lives.

When there is more than one party involved in the mediation process, the goal is to obtain the compensation our clients deserve from each party at the same time, so we are not leaving any detail to chance.

Our skilled commercial truck lawyers in Las Vegas have the experience necessary to produce results, no matter how many people, companies, insurers, or opposing attorneys are involved. We welcome the challenge.

And if we do not like the negotiation options the insurers propose, we will go to court with a rock-solid case that is bolstered by:

Evidence from the crash scene
Collision reconstruction specialists
Eyewitness statements
Black box data
Logbooks
Other truck records, including:
- Inspection records
- Maintenance reports
- Repair history
Driver background records, including:
- Criminal history
- Drug or alcohol violations
- Traffic collisions where the driver was at fault

What Compensation Can I Receive in a Truck Accident Case?

All truck accident cases differ, as do the medical needs and financial recovery costs of each victim. That being said, many truck accident victims find that they are able to recover certain damages.

These damages often include:

Immediate and short- and long-term medical care
Lost wages, from the time of the accident through your recovery
Miscellaneous expenses and costs resulting from your injuries
Partial or full disability needs
Property damage and replacement
Short- and long-term disability needs
Pain and suffering

How Common Are Truck Accidents?

Trucks that are considered “large” are over 10,000 pounds. This category of trucks includes semis (tractor-trailers), single-unit large trucks, and some heavy cargo vans. There are thousands of large trucks in motion on the roads and highways around Las Vegas and throughout Nevada everyday, including tractor-trailers with huge loads and logging trucks. Some trucks are carrying hazardous materials that are flammable, explosive, poisonous, or radioactive. Other trucks can weigh upwards of 80,000 pounds (40 tons).

According to a 2019 study conducted by the Federal Highway Administration, there are more than 158 million semi-trucks registered in the country.

Additionally, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration recorded that, in 2020:

Nearly 147,000 injuries resulted from semi-truck crashes
4,965 fatalities resulted from semi-truck crashes
332,000 accidents involving property damage occurred

Additionally, statistics consistently show that occupants of other vehicles are far more likely to be injured or killed in truck collisions.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, of the people killed in large semi-truck accidents in 2020:

71% were occupants of other vehicles
13% were non-occupants, including bicyclists, pedestrians, and bystanders

The NHTSA also reports that large trucks, on average, are responsible for 9% of all vehicles involved in fatal crashes.

Truck accident injuries have tremendous costs in terms of loss of life, permanent injuries, loss of jobs and future income. The grave losses suffered by a family whose member(s) have been hurt in a truck accident are both financial and emotional.

Understanding Truck Driver Fatigue and Its Impact on Road Safety

Truck driver fatigue is a major cause of truck accidents. The Las Vegas law firm of Bertoldo Carter Smith & Cullen represents individuals and families injured in large-truck collisions, many of which are caused directly by a truck driver’s fatigue, which is common among long-haul drivers on U.S. roads today.

Truck drivers are under pressure to “deliver the goods,” literally – to get their cargo to its destination as soon as is safely possible, and sometimes sooner. In many cases, the more deliveries that a truck driver can make, the more money he or she can make. This results in drivers trying to drive too many hours at a stretch. Too many hours on the road is one of the factors that can produce driver fatigue.

Federal Regulations About Driving Time

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is aware of the problem of driver fatigue. Truck drivers must get a strictly controlled Commercial Driver’s License (CDL), and federal regulations limit the number of continuous hours that a long-haul truck driver can be on the road. However, many truck drivers know how to get around these limits.

Truck Driver Drug Use in Las Vegas

Truck drivers can also be tempted to take stimulants and other illegal drugs to help them stay on the road and stay awake. Methamphetamine and cocaine use among truck drivers is illegal, of course, but it still occurs. Truck drivers who use these drugs (or alcohol) while they’re on the road are prone to the extreme fatigue that follows stimulant use.

A tired truck driver is an impaired driver. He or she may make mistakes in judgment or become an outright driving hazard. We’ve all heard the reports of exhausted, snoozing truck drivers who plowed into cars on a freeway or at a toll booth. An 80,000-pound, 75-foot-long truck can do a huge amount of damage when it’s being driven by a fatigued trucker.

Large trucks carry thousands of tons of hazardous and non-hazardous materials across the U.S. each day, and any impairment of the drivers in charge of this cargo is a problem for everyone on the road.

Although spokesmen for the trucking industry have stated that the rate of drug use among truck drivers is essentially the same as or lower than that of drivers of other vehicles, this is small consolation and debatable at best.

Two factors that may account for drug and alcohol use by truck drivers:

Economic pressures on truck drivers to deliver their cargo as quickly as possible – and to continue to deliver as much cargo as possible – have resulted in the use of stimulants such as methamphetamine and cocaine to help the drivers stay awake on long hauls.
The boredom of driving hundreds of miles a day, year after year, is assuaged by drugs such as marijuana and alcohol.

Alcohol and Drug Testing

Truck drivers are routinely tested for alcohol and drug use by federal laws monitored by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Some 30,000 drivers test positive for drug use each year in the U.S. However, there are many ways for truck drivers to cheat these tests, and there are probably thousands more drug-using truck drivers on the road each day around the Las Vegas area and across the country.

Alcohol, Marijuana, Cocaine and Methamphetamine Use

The National Transportation Safety Board studied a large set of fatal truck accidents and found that in about one in eight of these accidents, the cause was marijuana use by the truck driver. Another study published in the New England Journal of Medicine revealed that of the many truck drivers stopped by police for driving recklessly, of those who did not have alcohol in their blood, 45% had marijuana, and 25% had cocaine in their blood.

At Bertoldo Carter Smith & Cullen, we represent the victims of all types of truck accidents, including ones caused by truck driver drug use. If a drug-impaired truck driver has hurt you, contact our Las Vegas truck accident lawyers for more information about your legal rights.

How Much Does It Cost to Hire a Truck Accident Lawyer in Las Vegas?

At Bertoldo Carter Smith & Cullen, we take each truck accident case—and all personal injury cases—without any upfront costs. We work on a contingency basis, which means if we do not win your case, you do not pay us anything.

Reach out to our accomplished attorneys today to schedule a free consultation. Allow us to explore the facts of your case and provide the legal representation you need to move forward.

Call Bertoldo Carter Smith & Cullen at (702) 505-8115 or contact us online today.

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