The Pritzker Hageman law firm’s team of truck crash lawsuit attorneys support a new Minnesota Safety Council campaign calling for everyone in our society to change how we talk about traffic crashes — specifically, not using the word “accident’’ to describe them. Already in 2017 on Minnesota roads, 25 crash deaths were recorded through February 2, including fatal truck accidents, according to the Minnesota Office of Traffic Safety.
The Pritzker Hageman truck crash legal team, led by attorney Eric Hageman is all too familiar with the struggles of crash victims, having represented them in case after case where truckers have been negligent in the operation of semi-trucks, 18-wheelers, tractor-trailers, and big rigs that outweigh passenger cars, pickup trucks and motorcycles by 20 or 30 times.
Contact Eric today and find out how you can get compensation and justice
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Semi-Truck Crashes Are Preventable Tragedies
The Minnesota Department of Public Safety has long stopped using the word “accident’’ to describe the collisions and wrecks that devastate the lives of Minnesota families and families. While accidents are typically “inconvenient and annoying,” the Safety Council said in a written statement, “Crashes are heartbreaking, painful, expensive, sometimes deadly, and preventable.’’
The term “truck accident,’’ for instance, suggests a random, unavoidable sequence of events. In reality, truck accidents that cause injury or death are preventable, predictable, and almost inevitable if the operator is not practicing good traffic safety. This is the message the Minnesota Safety Council is driving home, especially through employers as the agency assists them in spreading the word. Wrongful death truck lawsuits, for instance, should no longer use the word “accident” to describe what happened when someone was run over by an out-of-control tractor-trailer.
As the Minnesota Safety Council notes, a staggering 40 percent of lost work hours are due to traffic crashes. Together, including truck crash deaths, they cost employers nationwide $47 billion annually. The message to trucking companies and all other motorists is that even when weather and road conditions are challenging, drivers can control what they do and how they prepare and react to the person who cuts them off or the driver who slows down in front of them.
Commercial truck drivers can choose for themselves whether to drive distracted, drive while impaired, speed, or drive too fast for conditions. When a semi-truck rear-ends a passenger car or causes their rig to jackknife or when the truck turns into a car in another lane, it is not an “accident.’’ It was a preventable crash. The negligent truck driver did not react accordingly or pay attention.
Truck Crash Lawsuit information
At Pritzker Hageman, our team of truck crash lawyers conducts thorough lawsuit investigations to determine the liable parties that can be sued. Our lawsuit investigations include:
- Spoliation Letters: Correspondence to the trucking firm requesting that the company preserve evidence related to the accident. It’s important for this to happen soon after the crash.
- Police Reports: Our attorneys scour police reports and Highway Patrol reports of the crash and they often find errors omissions or improper conclusions based on the facts. Checking reports also means doing background checks on the truck driver and the driver’s accident history, chemical abuse history, criminal history, and regulatory licensing.
- Eyewitness Interviews: Witnesses need to tell the story before memories fade.
- Accident Reconstruction: We have relationships with the best forensic engineers in the business, and we have the resources to hire them. We are not paid unless you win your lawsuit against the trucking company and truck driver. In past cases where our attorneys have won settlements of more than $1 million, computer animation has been used by our law firm to clearly show that the crash was no accident.
- Examine Crash Vehicles: All vehicles involved in the crash should be inspected for dents, scrapes, other evidence of the impact, and defective parts (brakes, steering, tires, etc.). We always do this with our accident reconstruction experts to determine direction, speed, evasive action, angle of impact, force of impact, etc.
- Compliance Check: Semi-trucks and commercial truck drivers are governed by state and federal safety laws, including truck maintenance protocols and log book entries. Often we have found that truck drivers who crash into cars, pedestrians, motorcycles or other trucks were exceeding federal limits on hours spent behind the wheels. All of these facts are salient to your case.
Contact an Experienced Truck Crash Attorney
If you or a loved one was injured or killed in a truck crash, you need the help of an experienced truck crash lawyer. The Pritzker Hageman truck crash legal team has obtained hundreds of millions of dollars for our injury clients in some of the largest recoveries in U.S. history. For a free, no-obligation legal consultation, please call 612-338-0202, text 612-261-0856, or fill out the form below.