Long Island Overloaded Truck Accident Lawyer

If you have been seriously harmed by a vehicle that was driving with a load above its legal weight limit, you may be eligible for injury compensation for your resulting damages. A dedicated Long Island overloaded truck lawyer could represent you in a court or settlement proceeding to hold the trucking company liable for your injuries. Read on to learn more about how a knowledgeable truck accident attorney could offer you their assistance today.

Role of the Truck Company

When taking on an overloaded truck accident case, a professional Long Island lawyer will examine the maximum capacity of the truck to determine whether or not it was driving while exceeding that limit. An attorney must also evaluate factors such as whether the truck was properly maintained if it regularly received inspections, and what its overall history includes. The driver must be taken into account as well.

A knowledgeable attorney will also examine the truck driver’s history, their daily logs, and see whether or not they complied with the rules they were obligated to follow. If they were driving for too many hours at a time and were extremely drowsy while driving, they could be held liable for these actions. Sometimes, trucking companies push their employees beyond the legal driving limits or overload their vehicle in order to meet a deadline and save money on expenses. If an attorney is able to determine that this practice was happening behind the scenes, the truck company could also be a defendant in a resulting injury case as well.

How a Load Affects Maneuverability

Overloaded vehicles yield very dangerous situations because the weight of the truck ultimately affects its ability to react quickly to an emergency situation. For example, if the driver needs to make a quick stop because of debris on the road or because a light suddenly changed, the vehicle will not be able to decelerate as quickly as before. This can greatly increase the chances of an accident happening due to the truck’s inability to prevent itself from hitting the cars in front of it or avoiding something dangerous on the road.

If the truck is too top-heavy, it could potentially tip over if it takes a turn too sharply at high speeds. When these types of vehicles collapse onto other cars, the results can be fatal. Also, an overloaded or overweight truck can also cause railings to get dislodged. A steel railing can get detached and drop 50 or 60 feet to the vehicle below and cut the vehicle in half. In these situations, a compassionate Long Island attorney could represent injured individuals or the surviving family members of those who lost a loved one in an overloaded truck crash.

Assigning Liability

To assign liability following an overloaded tractor-trailer wreck, a Long Island lawyer will look at who owns the cab, which is the front part of the truck, and determine if that was the cause of the accident. There could an owner for the cab and a separate owner for the trailer. The lawyer would then see what company owned the truck and see if it was improperly maintained and/or overloaded. It is essential to look at all the different aspects of the situation when determining who is liable for the damages.

Injuries Resulting from Specific Types of Cargo

The type of cargo on a truck can affect one’s resulting injuries depending on its weight and chemical structure. If flammable, toxic, or explosive cargo is involved, that could be very catastrophic in the case of an accident involving severe burns to other drivers. Non-explosive cargo can still cause heavy damages if it is particularly heavy, acting as a battering ram onto other vehicles. If the truck is overloaded, there is a good chance that its cargo is not safely secured to the vehicle. This could lead to situations where the cargo is able to fall onto the road and harm other drivers.

Injuries involved in these circumstances could include broken and fractured bones, deep lacerations to the skin, and potentially ruptured internal organs as well. Because of the potential severity of these injuries, it can be significant to retain the help of a weathered Long Island  lawyer as soon as possible following an overloaded truck collision.

Call a Long Island Overloaded Truck Accident Attorney

When truck drivers and their parent companies fail to safety regulations, it can lead to devastating consquences. Trucks carrying cargo that exceeds weight requirements put their own drivers and everyone else on the road at risk. Contact a Long Island overloaded truck accident lawyer as soon as possible to start investigating whether a trucker and their parent company could be liable for compensation.

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