Practice Areas

Truck & 18-Wheelers.

Eighty thousand pounds does not have accidents. It has causes, and I find them.

A loaded 18-wheeler can weigh up to eighty thousand pounds, more than twenty times your car. When it hits, physics does the rest, and the trucking company knows it.

A truck wreck is not a bigger car wreck. It is a case against a company with federal regulators, professional drivers, and often a rapid-response team that reaches the scene before you have left the hospital, working to shape the story early. You need someone who knows the rules that govern that company and how to hold it to them.

Federal rules change everything

Interstate trucking runs under the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations. They cap how long a driver can be on the road, require electronic logging of those hours, and set standards for inspection, maintenance, and driver qualification. When a carrier or driver breaks one of those rules and someone is hurt, the violation is not just paperwork. It is evidence of negligence.

Federal hours-of-service rules (49 C.F.R. Part 395) limit a property-carrying driver to eleven hours of driving within a fourteen-hour on-duty window after ten hours off, require a thirty-minute break after eight cumulative hours of driving, and cap weekly hours at sixty in seven days or seventy in eight. Hours are recorded by an electronic logging device.

The evidence disappears fast

The proof in a truck case lives in the truck and in the company's files: the electronic logs, the engine control module that records speed and braking, dashcam footage, the driver qualification file, dispatch and maintenance records. Much of it can be overwritten or discarded in the ordinary course of business within weeks. A preservation letter sent in the first days, before that data cycles out, is one of the most important steps in the whole case.

It is not just the driver

The driver is often the least of it. A trucking company can be responsible for the driver's conduct on the job, and separately for its own: negligent hiring of an unqualified driver, inadequate training, pressure to run illegal hours, or skipped maintenance. Naming the company, not only the person behind the wheel, is what makes a serious case whole.

Common Questions
How are truck accident cases different from car accidents?
They are governed by federal trucking regulations, they usually involve a company defendant with more resources and its own investigators, and the key evidence sits inside the truck and the carrier's files. That evidence can be overwritten quickly, so acting fast matters more than in an ordinary car wreck.
Who can be held responsible besides the driver?
Often the trucking company itself, for the driver's on-the-job conduct and for its own negligence in hiring, training, supervision, or maintenance. Depending on the facts, a cargo loader, a maintenance contractor, or a parts manufacturer may also share responsibility.
What should I do to protect a truck accident claim?
Get medical care, and get a lawyer involved quickly so a preservation letter can go out before the electronic logs, engine data, and dashcam footage are lost. The first days are when the most important evidence is either secured or gone.

Tell me what happened.

Free consultation. No fees unless we win. Speak with me directly, not a screener.

Contact Orlando Rodriguez

(713) 239-2300