Benefits of Calling Pennsylvania Truck Accident Attorneys
Hiring a Pennsylvania truck accident attorney is similar to visiting a physician specialist to help you treat specific conditions. In law, as in medicine, practitioners tend to specialize in a limited number of areas. A lawyer who handles a general practice and takes care of everything from personal injuries and real estate transactions to divorces and wills probably knows a little bit about many different areas of the law. When dealing with personal injury and truck accidents, you’re better off working with an attorney who specializes in those types of cases. If you’ve had a truck accident in Pennsylvania, your attorney should be knowledgeable and experienced in Pennsylvania truck accident law.
Big Rigs Must Keep Logs and Other Information
One of the essential elements of any truck accident case is to determine who was at fault. In many cases, that can be difficult to ascertain, particularly if there are no witnesses and the drivers involved offer different versions of what happened. However, your attorney has an advantage in this case. Big rig companies are required to follow a number of safety rules and regulations put in place by the federal government. Not only are these rules a requirement, but paperwork showing that the rules are followed on an ongoing basis must be maintained. An experienced truck accident attorney knows the formal way to request information from trucking companies that are under the supervision of the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Truck Accident Attorneys Know How to Get Valuable Truck Records
Not only can your truck accident attorney find valuable information, such as the results of drug-alcohol tests after the accident, but it’s also possible to determine the long-term driving record of a particular truck driver. If those records show a pattern of reckless driving, drug use or other issues, that can substantially boost your case against the trucking company.
Your Accident Attorney Knows About the Trucking ‘Black Box’
Any experienced truck accident attorney will also know to request the information from the truck’s electronic control module, or ECM. Though they are called black boxes, they are not identical to the black boxes installed in airplanes. The purpose of ECMs has more to do with warranty claims, but it’s possible to get some driver usage information from the ECM – anything from highest speed, time driving above 65 mph, and the amount of idling time. It would be possible, for example, to determine how many hours the truck was consecutively on the road. That information could potentially create a fatigue argument or a dispute on the hours entered into the trucking log.