We share the road with them every single day. Massive, 80,000-pound tractor-trailers that tower over our passenger cars. We trust that the drivers behind the wheel are professional, well-trained, and alert. We trust that the trucking companies that own these rigs have maintained them properly and aren’t pushing their drivers to the breaking point. But when that trust is broken, the results are catastrophic.
Losing a loved one in a crash with a commercial truck is a uniquely violent and traumatic event. The sheer size and weight difference mean that for the person in the smaller vehicle, there is often no chance of survival. The grief that follows is immense, but it is often mixed with a deep and burning anger. These are not “accidents”; they are predictable and preventable tragedies caused by a driver’s mistake, a company’s greed, or a catastrophic maintenance failure.
At The Killino Firm, our team has established a strong track record of holding trucking companies accountable and securing justice for families devastated by fatal tractor-trailer accidents. We are experienced in these incredibly complex cases because we believe that the powerful trucking industry must be held accountable for the devastation it causes. We have seen firsthand how a fatigued driver, a set of bad brakes, or a company that puts profits over safety is not just a news story; it’s the reason a family has an empty seat at their dinner table forever.
When you’re trying to cope with this sudden, profound loss, the thought of taking on a massive trucking company and its insurance carrier is overwhelming. They will have a team of investigators and lawyers at the crash scene within hours. Their only job is to protect their company by minimizing the evidence and shifting the blame. Our firm’s mission is to provide you with relentless advocacy. Let’s walk through these cases clearly, so you understand the challenges ahead and the steps that can lead to justice for your loved one.Â
The numbers are shocking and they paint a grim picture of the danger on our nation’s highways. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), in the most recent year of data, 5,788 people were killed in crashes involving large trucks in the United States. That’s more than 15 families losing a loved one every single day.
But here is the most important and tragic part of that statistic: in fatal crashes between a large truck and a passenger vehicle, 97% of the people killed are the occupants of the smaller passenger car. The laws of physics are brutal and unforgiving. When an 80,000-pound truck collides with a 4,000-pound car, the people in the car almost always pay the price.
The Common Statistics the Trucking Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know
Let’s go beyond the main numbers and look at some of the data that reveals why these deadly crashes are happening.
The best thing you can do for your family is to find an experienced truck accident lawyer near me, such as The Killino Firm, who understands this data and knows how to use it to expose the negligence that led to your loved one’s death.
When we investigate a fatal truck crash, we are not just looking at the driver. We are investigating the entire chain of decisions that put a dangerous truck on the road. These crashes are almost never the result of a single error, but a cascade of failures.
Our investigation is immediate and aggressive. We dispatch a team of the best experts to the crash scene to document the evidence before it disappears. We send a spoliation letter to the trucking company, legally demanding that they preserve the truck, the driver’s logs, and all maintenance records. This is a critical first step in building a case.
Unlike a simple car accident, a fatal truck crash often involves multiple layers of responsibility. A successful wrongful death lawsuit requires identifying and pursuing claims against every single party whose negligence contributed to the tragedy.
Here are the potential defendants in a truck accident wrongful death lawsuit:
Finding the best path to justice for your family means having a legal team with the experience to unravel the complex web of relationships in the trucking industry and hold every single negligent party accountable.
Key Takeaways
We know that this is an overwhelming amount of information to process while you are grieving. Here are the most important things to remember:
Top Resource Groups for Survivors of Truck & Tractor-Trailer Accident Wrongful Death
This question highlights the most critical challenge in these cases: the trucking company is already building its defense. Your first step is to level the playing field by hiring our experienced firm immediately. While their team is there to minimize liability, our team’s purpose is to find the truth. We will immediately send a “spoliation letter,” a legal demand that the trucking company preserve all evidence, including the truck’s “black box” data, the driver’s logs, and all maintenance records.
The right to pursue justice is not permanent; it is governed by a strict, non-negotiable timeline set by law. Once this period, typically two years, expires, the courthouse doors are irrevocably closed to your family. However, the practical deadline is even shorter. A commercial trucking crash is a corporate investigation, and the evidence—from electronic data recorders and maintenance logs to driver toxicology reports—can be altered or lost. This mandates immediate action to legally compel the preservation of all evidence needed to hold the responsible parties accountable.
Through a contingency fee agreement, which essentially creates a partnership between our firm and your family. We deploy our own capital to fund the entire legal battle—from retaining world-renowned industry experts to managing years of complex litigation. Your family will never see a bill for our time or expenses. Our compensation is earned only as a percentage of the recovery we win for you. This model neutralizes the corporation’s financial advantage and guarantees you have the most powerful representation possible without any personal financial exposure.
A commercial trucking case is a corporate liability investigation disguised as a traffic accident. Unlike a car crash, the investigation extends far beyond the driver to the network of corporate entities that put that truck on the road. This involves a forensic analysis of a dense thicket of federal safety rules, driver hiring and training records, fleet maintenance histories, and data from onboard electronic recorders. We must deconstruct the corporation’s entire safety operation to expose the systemic failures that led to the fatal crash.
On the contrary, blaming the weather is often a confession of professional negligence. Unlike regular drivers, commercial operators are legally mandated to be experts in defensive driving and are held to a higher standard of care. Federal regulations explicitly require them to reduce speed and, if necessary, cease operations when conditions become hazardous. A professional driver’s failure to adapt to foreseeable weather is not an excuse; it is a clear violation of their duty and a primary cause of the collision.
This is a valid and common concern. The paradox is that the surest path to a private settlement is to build an unshakeable case for a public trial. Trucking companies employ a strategy of deny, delay, and defend, and will only pay the full value of a claim when the risk of losing in court becomes too great to ignore. It is the credible threat of a jury verdict, built upon our aggressive and meticulous preparation, that creates the business incentive for them to resolve the case fairly and privately.
We counter their corporate playbook with a three-pronged strategy. First, we bring a forensic knowledge of the federal trucking regulations that often surpasses their own safety directors. Second, we deploy an elite rapid-response team of the nation’s foremost trucking and accident reconstruction experts to secure and analyze the evidence before they can. Finally, we have the independent financial resources to reject lowball offers and outlast their war-of-attrition tactics, ensuring your family’s case is decided on its merits, not on their corporate balance sheet.
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