While safety features like airbags and seatbelts certainly improve a motor vehicle occupant’s chances of avoiding serious injury in a wreck, the frame of the car itself is often the most significant factor determining how severe the consequences of a crash are. Someone separated from the force of an impact by the entire front or back of their car is generally less likely to get badly hurt than someone separated from it by only a car door less than a foot thick.
This is a big reason, among many others, why side-impact truck accidents in Las Vegas tend to be especially dangerous. If you were hurt in this sort of collision recently, you should make contacting the seasoned truck accident lawyers in Las Vegas at Shook & Stone one of your top priorities.
What Damages Are Recoverable After a Side-Impact Truck Wreck?
Even at relatively low speeds, a semi-truck T-boning a commuter car in an intersection or sideswiping one on an interstate is likely to cause devastating and potentially life-altering injuries. This means that lawsuits and settlement demands built around side-impact truck crashes in Las Vegas generally need to focus on both past and future losses relative to when the legal process begins, including things like:
- Lost overall quality of life
- Physical pain and discomfort
- Lost short-term work income
- Costs of emergency medical care
- Psychological trauma and emotional anguish
- Lost long-term working and earning capacity
- Costs of car repairs/replacement and other forms of personal property damage
- Expected costs of future rehabilitative or maintenance care, as well as assistive equipment like wheelchairs
In the event a crash like this causes a fatal injury, our attorneys can help you and other surviving family members of the decedent demand compensation for losses you will experience because of their “wrongful death,” including lost future financial support and lost love and companionship.
Proving a Truck Driver Solely at Fault for a Crash
Even though tractor-trailer drivers are much less likely to suffer injury in traffic accidents compared to anyone inside a smaller vehicle involved in the crash, courts will not just assume truck drivers are always to blame for side-impact collisions in Las Vegas. To recover civil compensation, you will need to prove that your accident only happened in the first place because of a specific reckless, careless, or illegal act by the truck driver involved or by the company they worked for.
You may also need to prove that you yourself were not to blame for causing or unnecessarily worsening your own injuries—for example, because you too violated a traffic law or otherwise acted irresponsibly prior to the collision. Otherwise, a court might hold your share of “comparative fault” for your accident against you as a reduction from the value of your final damage award, or even as a reason to deny you compensation altogether.
Get Help from a Las Vegas Attorney Following a Side-Impact Truck Accident
Traffic accidents involving commercial trucks can be immensely traumatic, especially when they involve a massive tractor-trailer T-boning or sideswiping a smaller car. If you want to get paid what you deserve for harm caused by a crash of this nature, you will want assistance from legal professionals who have years of experience handling every aspect of claims like yours and achieving favorable case results on behalf of people like you.
If you or someone you love was recently involved in a side-impact truck accident in Las Vegas, proactively enforcing your right to pursue civil recovery could be vital to protecting your entire family’s long-term prospects. Call Shook & Stone today for a free consultation.
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