Las Vegas, NV personal injury attorney Keith E. Galliher shares his advice for people injured in a collision with a truck. Handling truck accident cases from a client’s perspective is generally similar to other types of accidents: clients provide statements to the police, seek legal counsel, and begin receiving treatment. However, truck accident cases feature distinct characteristics, particularly the emphasis on the truck driver, who is typically credentialed and licensed.

A common issue in these cases is that truck drivers often exceed the maximum driving hours established by federal regulations, and violations of these rules are frequent. As a result, one of the initial steps an attorney usually takes is to file a lawsuit, as these cases rarely resolve without legal action.

Once litigation is initiated, one of the primary objectives is to obtain the driver’s logs, which detail how long the driver operated the truck on the day of the accident. More often than not, these logs indicate that the driver exceeded the federally mandated driving hours, providing an additional basis for establishing liability beyond any negligence that may have contributed to the crash. Consequently, truck accident cases are managed differently; litigation is filed earlier, and attorneys prioritize obtaining early discovery of the trucker’s log to determine how long the driver was behind the wheel.