Tractor Trailer Accidents

Tractor trailers, big rigs, semi’s, 18-wheelers all refer to large trucks weighing up to 80,000 pounds and ranging 65-75 feet in length. Considering the weight and size of machinery in motion, when going at great speeds a truck rolls much further before it can stop. In fact, a truck requires 100 extra feet to stop when traveling at 65 miles per hour than it does at 55 miles per hour.

Any number of elements result in trucking accidents, from truck drivers falling asleep or breaking speed limits to meet deadlines to oversized loads or truck size obstructing visibility. When a tractor trailer impacts a smaller vehicle, the outcome is often devastating. Of smaller vehicle drivers and passengers involved in truck collisions, approximately 5,000 die and 140,000 are injured every year. Smaller vehicles are at a definite disadvantage when impacted by a large truck, no matter how well designed they are.

Not all tractor trailer accidents are the fault of truck drivers, and trucking companies have their own litigation teams and agents that they send to the site of accidents, to interview the injured, gather evidence and begin building a defense.

At Davis, Bethune & Jones, LLC, we have gone up against trucking companies and won noteworthy verdicts and settlements for our clients, such as a $9.5 million settlement with ABC Trucking Company for the family of a fifteen-year old girl who was killed as a passenger in a head on collision with a tractor trailer. We also acquired a $6.7 million recovery for a woman severely injured in a tractor trailer accident. The truck driver had been working excessive hours, was fatigued and speeding when he took an exit ramp, collided, and hit a retaining wall. The woman passenger, who was asleep in the truck’s sleeper berth was severely injured, resulting in the amputation of her right arm and leg. We also helped secure a $5.2 million settlement for clients in a tractor trailer accident that resulted in multiple injuries and the death of an 89 year old woman.