Investigating an 18-Wheeler Accident in Texas

Winning an 18-wheeler accident case comes down to evidence. Juries do not want to be told how to decide — they want to see photographs of the wreckage, hear the 911 call recordings, hold pieces of defective tires in their hands, examine improper loading manifests, and review the truck driver’s employment history and drug test results for themselves. Evidence is not a bonus. It is what separates the cases that win from the ones that do not. Our San Antonio truck accident lawyers at our firm go to work gathering evidence immediately after we take a case because we know that every hour that passes is an hour the trucking company uses to make critical evidence disappear.

Most people have no idea what evidence matters in an 18-wheeler accident case. They do not know how to preserve the truck’s electronic logging device data before it gets overwritten, how to subpoena the driver’s personnel file, or how to secure surveillance footage from nearby businesses before it is erased. Our lawyers do. We have built our practice around aggressive, thorough investigation because we have seen firsthand how a single piece of evidence can turn a losing case into a winning one.

If you or someone you love has been hurt in a collision with a commercial truck anywhere in Texas, time is working against you. Call our team today for a free consultation and let us start preserving the evidence you will need to hold the trucking company accountable.

Determining Who Caused the Crash

18-wheeler accidents are rarely as straightforward as they first appear. Based on initial evidence, it often is not obvious who was at fault. Other drivers on the road may have contributed to the crash. A pedestrian may have played a role. But in many of the cases we handle, the mistake that ultimately caused the accident happened long before the collision — behind the scenes, while the trailer was being loaded or the truck was being maintained.

A shifting cargo load due to improper securement can cause a truck to jackknife without warning. A brake failure caused by deferred maintenance can turn a routine slowdown into a catastrophic rear-end collision. A driver who has been on the road for 14 hours straight because his employer pressured him to violate federal hours-of-service regulations may have been too fatigued to react in time. Until we conduct a thorough investigation, there is no sure way to know who should be named as a defendant in your lawsuit — the driver, the trucking company, the cargo loader, the maintenance contractor, or all of them.

Our San Antonio 18-wheeler accident lawyers know how to follow the trail of liability wherever it leads. We look beyond the obvious and dig into the records, the contracts, and the regulatory filings that reveal who cut corners and who should be held financially responsible for your injuries.

How We Investigate 18-Wheeler Accidents

Our investigation starts at the scene. It is standard procedure for our team to visit the accident location in nearly every truck accident case we handle, no matter how far away. We record measurements, photograph the roadway, document sight lines and traffic patterns, and look for physical evidence that the police report may have missed. We talk to witnesses while their memories are still fresh. We track down video surveillance footage from gas stations, convenience stores, traffic cameras, and any other source that may have captured the crash or the moments leading up to it.

We gather police reports, toxicology results, the truck driver’s logbooks, and electronic data from the truck’s onboard systems. Modern commercial trucks generate a tremendous amount of data — speed, braking, steering inputs, engine performance, and hours of operation — that can prove exactly what the driver was doing in the seconds before impact. That data does not last forever. Trucking companies know how damaging it can be, and they have every incentive to let it disappear. Our lawyers move fast to send preservation letters that legally require the trucking company to retain all evidence related to the crash.

We also bring in outside experts when a case demands it. Accident reconstruction specialists who can calculate speeds and impact angles. Forensic engineers who can examine brake systems and tire failures. Trucking industry experts who can testify about federal safety regulations and whether the carrier violated them. Everything we gather is collected in a way that makes it admissible in court, because evidence that cannot be used at trial does you no good.

Why You Need to Contact Lawyers Immediately

We once handled a case where our client was being blamed for causing a collision with an 18-wheeler. The defense argued that our client had been driving without headlamps, making his vehicle invisible in low-light conditions. When our lawyers went to the salvage yard where our client’s car had been towed, the headlamps were indeed missing from the vehicle.

But we believed our client. We were not satisfied with what we found. So we asked the salvage yard owner for the facility’s video surveillance footage. The tapes were scheduled to be erased later that same day. We got to them just in time. On the footage, we watched the defendant visit the salvage yard and remove our client’s headlamps from his car. The defense’s entire case was built on tampered evidence, and once we proved that, the case was over.

If our client had called us even one day later, those tapes would have been destroyed. He would have lost his case, and someone would have gotten away with a terrible miscarriage of justice. That is why we tell every potential client the same thing: do not wait. The strongest cases are built when we get involved as soon as possible after the accident. We can usually put together a solid case even if you do not contact us for several months, but critical evidence has a way of vanishing when you give the other side time to make it disappear.

Call Our Injury Lawyers Today

18-wheeler accidents produce some of the most catastrophic injuries on Texas roads, and the trucking companies and their insurers will fight hard to avoid paying what they owe. You need lawyers who know how to investigate these cases, preserve the evidence, identify every liable party, and build a claim that stands up in court. Our team of Injury Lawyers has that experience.  . The sooner you call, the stronger your case will be.