Trucking cases are very complicated cases.  It’s necessary to get a hold of an experienced and competent attorney as quickly as possible after an accident with a big truck.  The reason is that there's a lot of information that needs to be attained right away.

The truckers frequently carry two sets of logs for when they are driving, and these logs will show the truth as to how many hours that they’ve been driving and then other set will show false logs that they will report to the highway patrol or to officials.

The other thing is the truck will be transmit information electronically, potentially by GPS, back to the trucking company.  It’s necessary to get the information about the truck that is transmitted electronically back to the trucking company as quickly as possible before it’s destroyed.

The other thing is the trucking company is going to be listed on the Internet on a specific Web site that talks about trucking companies and their violations, the violations of that particular driver, of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Act, any accidents that that particular truck has been and other useful information that is going to be necessary for a trucking case.  The trucking company is only required to keep this information for up to six months after the accident, so it’s critical to get a hold of an experienced and competent attorney to obtain this information.  

Another reason in a trucking case that you also want to get a hold of an attorney right away is because it may be necessary to take the truck and impound the truck or buy the truck from the trucking company or the insurance company in case of inspection of the truck has to be done.  

The other thing is the driver of the truck is supposed to a do pre-inspection of the truck and that should have been done before the driver drove that particular day of the accident.  

Necessary letters need to be sent out in a trucking case to the trucking company, its owner, safety director and the driver of the truck to try and preserve this evidence.

The driver may voluntary cooperate with an attorney against the trucking company or against the insurance company for the trucking company.  It’s possible that the driver may have been fired as a result of this accident or that the business may have been shutdown.

A lot of times, investigators for myself can find the truck and find the driver and obtain some of the information that they need about the truck and the driver and the accident.  

The question is who has insurance for the accident.  The trucking company may have insurance, the tractor itself may be insured separately, the trailer itself may be insured separately, depending on what was being hauled, the truck may be leased from another company and, therefore, they may have insurance.

So all this information needs to be obtained as quickly as possible after an accident occurs.