Las Vegas, NV personal injury attorney Keith E. Galliher shares his advice for people injured in a collision with a truck. He explains that handling truck accident cases involves similar initial steps as other personal injury cases—giving a statement to the police, consulting a lawyer, and starting medical treatment. However, truck accidents require a distinct approach due to the specific regulations and circumstances surrounding commercial trucking.

Truck drivers, particularly those operating tractors pulling trailers, are typically credentialed and licensed. However, a common issue in these cases is that truck drivers often exceed federally mandated driving limits. Federal regulations strictly control how long a trucker can drive before taking mandatory rest breaks, but violations are frequent.

In these cases, filing a lawsuit is almost always necessary, as they rarely resolve without litigation. One of the first actions he takes as an attorney is to obtain the trucker’s logs through discovery. These logs detail how long the driver was on the road at the time of the crash. It’s common to find that the trucker exceeded the federal driving limits, which can establish an additional basis for liability beyond the negligence that directly caused the accident.

Because of these complexities, truck accident cases are handled differently, with early litigation and targeted discovery focusing on the trucker’s compliance with federal regulations. This approach is crucial to building a strong case for his clients.