The most a tractor-trailer can legally weigh is 80,000 pounds while traveling across state lines, enough to make it the heaviest vehicle on almost any road. Unfortunately, some trucking companies require their drivers to carry more cargo than they legally should, dramatically increasing the risk of a serious accident occurring.
If an overloaded/overweight truck accident in Ballwin caused you serious losses, the decisions you make now could impact the path the rest of your life takes. An experienced big rig crash attorney’s help could substantially improve your odds of recovering for all the damages that resulted from the collision.
Any collision between an 18-wheeler and a passenger car can have devastating consequences for the smaller vehicle’s occupants. The excessive mass of overloaded trailers translates into even more force being imparted into anything that truck hits. This means local residents involved in crashes with overloaded 18-wheelers have a high risk of sustaining permanent injuries.
An 18-wheeler wreck attorney could also pursue restitution for:
Representation from qualified legal counsel could be instrumental to recovering for the full economic and non-economic value of losses experienced in a wreck like this.
Overweight rig crashes in the area generally stem from the negligence of the parties who control what gets loaded into a trailer and how far the cargo is meant to be taken. This means that liability for these types of wrecks usually lies with the company that owns the truck involved. This could be on behalf of their employees or because they instructed their workers to violate federal and state weight limits.
Alternatively, it is sometimes the case that neither a rig driver nor the company that employs them is directly to blame for a local overweight truck collision. Instead, fault for the incident may lie with a third party contractor or supplier that was responsible for loading the trailer prior to transit. The third party may have inadvertently loaded too much cargo into a trailer or failed to secure load. A knowledgeable attorney could provide crucial assistance with identifying who played a role in an incident and what recovery options injured parties have as a result.
Overweight 18-wheelers are harder for well-trained operators to control, and they can cause exponentially greater harm in an accident than virtually any other street-legal vehicle. Because of that, a company that knowingly or mistakenly overloads one of their trailers has acted negligently and could be held responsible for their carelessness. This means they could bear financial liability for the impact of any wreck caused by that excessive weight.
After an overloaded/overweight truck accident in Ballwin, retaining a capable legal team should be a high priority after obtaining appropriate medical care. Call today to schedule a meeting.
