As the largest inland port along the border between the United States and Mexico, four bridges span the Rio Grande to connect Laredo and Nuevo Laredo across the border. This means that commercial trucks frequently use bridges and drive through Laredo to transport goods between the two countries. Even though most truck drivers are careful, crashes still happen.
Our Laredo truck accident lawyer is here to support you if a collision in our South Texas border town has left you with injuries and other damages. Typically, wrecks involving tractor-trailers can result in catastrophic injuries that affect accident victims for the rest of their lives. This can leave you and your family with medical bills and other costs that pile up.
Some of these truck accidents are even so violent that they result in fatalities. This can leave surviving family members needing to unexpectedly cover costly funeral and burial costs. What’s more, it can leave them struggling to financially make ends meet if the family’s primary breadwinner was the one who prematurely lost their life.
That’s why it helps to have Buckingham Barrera Vega Law Firm on your side. Our truck accident lawyers take time to build truck accident and wrongful death claims against trucking companies. Our attorneys have extensive experience negotiating with those in the trucking industry, including an insurance company representing them. We have the skillset and aggressive spirit necessary to get you the financial compensation that you deserve so that you can focus on your physical and emotional healing from your accident.
If you’re thinking about filing a claim with the insurance company of the trucker who collided with you, don’t do so until you speak with a truck accident lawyer from our office. Meeting with one of our accident attorneys for a free case evaluation is the first step to preserving your rights.
Webb County Truck Accident Statistics
As the county seat of Webb County, we can look at commercial vehicle accident statistics from Webb County to evaluate how many of these truck accidents occur in Laredo each year. The Texas Department of Transportation released a report containing values for the number of crashes that happened with large trucks and other commercial vehicles by county in 2020.
In total, there were 501 crashes of varying severities involving commercial vehicle drivers in Webb County in 2020, including:
- 395 non-injury crashes
- 51 possible injury crashes
- 44 non-incapacitating injury crashes
- 3 suspected serious injury crashes
- 2 fatal crashes
Nationwide Statistics Capturing Dangers Associated With Tractor-Trailer Accidents
An 18-wheeler accident can be especially dangerous for everyone involved because the trucks are so much larger and heavier than smaller automobiles.
According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), commercial trucks with loaded trailers can weigh up to 30 times more than passenger vehicles. This is why truck accidents between two inequitably-sized vehicles cause such devastating damages and even lead to fatalities more often.
Of the fatalities that happen in large truck crashes across the country, passenger vehicle occupants are more likely to die in the crashes compared to the occupants of the truck.
For the victims of these truck accidents, passengers in smaller vehicles make up 67% of the people who die. Motorists occupying large trucks make up 16% of the people who die. This shows that truck accidents are far more dangerous and deadly for drivers and passengers of regular cars than they are for truck occupants.
When you’re sharing the road with a large truck in Laredo, TX, you should always do your best to stay as safe as possible. When you’ve done all you can and still get into a truck accident because of the truck driver or a third party’s negligence (such as that of the trucking company or an auto part manufacturer), you need the help of the Laredo truck accident attorney like ours at Buckingham Barrera Vega Law Firm. We’ll guide you through your truck accident claim and get you justice for your injuries.
Common Causes of Large Truck Accidents in Laredo
You can’t always avoid an 18-wheeler accident happening. As much as you can, you want to stay as alert and safe as possible when sharing the road with a semi-truck, but that’s not always possible when you’re riding alongside negligent truck drivers. Their negligence can lead to a mistake and a subsequent Laredo truck accident.
When you’ve been in a collision with a large truck, your experienced truck accident attorney will need to look at the cause of the crash to determine exactly who was at fault. While you and your lawyer may find that a negligent truck driver was at fault for the crash, an investigation may also reveal that a trucking company, tire manufacturer, mechanic, or someone else’s oversight caused the commercial truck accident to occur.
Here are the most common reasons a truck accident occurs:
Truck Driver Error
Even though truck drivers are highly trained and there are many regulations in place just to ensure they drive safely, they can still make mistakes. If the truck driver gets distracted, falls asleep, or makes any other error while driving, it can lead to a catastrophic big rig accident. Drivers of passenger cars can also make errors that lead to accidents with large trucks.
Substance or Alcohol Use
Even though it’s illegal, drunk driving and driving under the influence of drugs or other substances can lead to serious truck accidents. Being inebriated or intoxicated affects motorists’ reaction times, visual acuity, and decision-making.
Speeding
Driving faster than the speed limit can cause all motorists, truck drivers included, to have less control over their vehicles. Speeding also reduces the reaction times of drivers and can prevent them from getting out of the way to avoid a truck accident.
With commercial trucks especially, speeding can lead to the tipping of the truck, which can lead to a rollover or jackknife accident. Any passenger cars riding alongside a truck that rolls over are vulnerable to becoming crushed by the tractor-trailer.
Blind Spots
Large trucks have blind spots surrounding them, both along the sides and in front and from behind, and these can be dangerous for regular vehicles. If a motorist sits in them too long and the truck driver can’t see the vehicle any longer, a motorist may forget that a driver is there and collide with them.
Overloaded Trailer
There are regulations surrounding the weight of trailers so that cabs can easily pull them and ensure that the axles are not overloaded. However, when the trailer is overloaded or loaded improperly, it can cause the weight to be wrongly distributed and cause commercial truck accidents.
Truck Maintenance and Defective Parts
As we’ve already been over, trucks are large and heavy. If one of their parts malfunctions, it can have deadly consequences for everyone involved. Defective brakes or a blown tire could lead to serious trucking accidents.
Our legal team may request maintenance records to determine how often commercial drivers or truck companies had the big rig serviced before the truck accident happened. Our attorneys also commonly explore who the mechanic was that performed the maintenance and what parts they used when investigating big rig accidents.
This insight gives our legal team a better idea of which insurance company to file truck accident claims against. There is the potential of there being more than one at-fault party responsible for the accident that happened.
Bad Roads
If roads are not properly maintained, they can become dangerous. Potholes, oil slicks, and other obstructions can lead to crashes between commercial vehicles and other cars on the road.
Poor Weather
High winds, serious rains, and other weather events could be dangerous when you’re on the road. It’s important to always check the weather forecast before driving and to remain calm when you’re driving in poor weather.
The cause of your collision is important to your truck accident claim. Once that’s pinned down, your Laredo truck accident attorney can use that cause to determine exactly which of the parties involved needs to be held responsible for what happened. From there, our truck accident attorneys will work with you to gather evidence and prove their fault.
Serious Injuries That Victims Suffer in Laredo Truck Accidents
Our Buckingham Barrera Vega Law Firm attorneys have a long history of handling truck injury cases in which larger commercial vehicles have struck passenger cars, motorcyclists, pedestrians, and other vehicle operators—the latter of which survived but suffered severe injuries.
Some of the more serious injuries we’ve found have life-altering consequences in the truck accident cases we’ve handled include:
- Traumatic brain injuries
- Spinal cord injuries
- Internal injuries (like internal organ damage)
- Broken bones (especially if the fracture shatters a bone or splinters, causing a protruding injury)
- Amputations
Fortunately, Texas personal injury law allows victims who’ve suffered harm due to trucker or trucking company negligence (such as breaking traffic laws) to recover compensation for their losses. Texas personal injury law affords victims the right to take legal action against trucking companies or truck drivers by filing a claim with their insurance company.
Compensation You Can Recover in a Laredo Truck Accident Case
As hinted at above, the consequences associated with large trucks colliding with other vehicles gives way to debilitating injuries. Diagnosing and triaging those injuries can have immediate financial costs. Those medical bills may continue to grow if further surgeries, therapy, or around-the-clock care is warranted.
Filing a claim with the insurance company that truck companies do business with can aid you in recovering property damage costs and other accident-related damages your entanglement with the trucking industry caused you to incur, such as:
- Medical bills
- Lost income
You may also be able to recover compensation for intangible yet life-deteriorating consequences associated with your involvement in an accident, including the mental anguish or discomfort you’ve been forced to endure.
Hire an Experienced Truck Accident Attorney To Represent You
Collisions between smaller vehicles and tractor-trailers or busses can lead to truck or bus accidents that produce catastrophic, life-changing injuries. With the help of a Laredo truck accident attorney, you can feel confident that our Laredo truck accident attorneys at Buckingham Barrera Vega Law Firm will fight for you to get full and fair compensation for the pain and suffering and financial losses you’ve endured stemming from the preventable commercial vehicle accident.
Like other personal injury attorneys, the legal counsel on our Buckingham Barrera Vega Law Firm team doesn’t assess attorney’s fees for our representation of you in your Laredo truck accident case unless we secure a financial recovery from the responsible party on your behalf. There’s, therefore, nothing to lose in letting our Laredo truck accident attorneys negotiate with insurance carriers that trucking companies utilize to secure just compensation for you.
Reach out to our law office today to schedule a complimentary case evaluation. During that meeting, you will meet with one of our attorneys to discuss how your Laredo truck accident occurred, the property damage your vehicle sustained, and the harm the truck driver caused you (i.e., medical expenses you’ve already amassed and any you may incur in the future).
Scheduling this meeting is the first step Texas truck accident victims should always hold trucking companies and other liable parties responsible for their actions instead of taking an insurance company on themselves. Reach out to get on our calendar for that free consultation today.
