Before you call.

A truck wreck is a case against a company, and the company usually starts working the day of the crash. Here is what I would tell you about the calls I get most, including the ones that are not for me.

Someone from the trucking company or its insurer already called me and wants a statement or a signature.

That is the rapid-response team, and it exists to shape the story early. You are not required to give a recorded statement to the other side’s insurer, and you should not sign anything, including a medical authorization, until someone who works for you has read it.

The evidence that decides these cases, the electronic logs, the engine data, the dashcam, the driver file, lives with the company and can be overwritten in the ordinary course of business within weeks. A preservation letter from a lawyer is what stops that.

A case, and an urgent one.

Read Black Box and ELD Data and, in Spanish, En boca cerrada no entran moscas. Then tell me about it before you talk to them again.

A commercial truck hit me, my injuries were minor, and they already paid for my car.

Minor is a word that changes over a month. Pain that starts a week later is common, and a police report that says no injury means only that nobody was bleeding at the scene.

The two-year clock in Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 16.003 runs from the crash. Accepting a property-damage payment does not release the injury claim unless the paper you signed says so; read it.

Worth a conversation if you have treated or are still hurting. If the injury truly resolved in days, probably not a case, and that is fine.

Read Wired to Move on why the hurt person says I am fine at the scene. Check what you signed.

I am the truck driver, and I was hurt on the job.

Then the answer depends on your employer. If it carries workers’ compensation, your claim against the employer runs through that system, and the question becomes whether someone other than your employer caused the wreck. If it opted out, you can sue it directly.

Texas Labor Code Section 406.033 strips a non-subscribing employer of the defenses that blame the worker. A third-party claim against another driver, a shipper, or a maintenance contractor survives either way.

Often a case, on one of those two tracks.

Read Non-Subscriber Work Injury and Third-Party Claims. Benefits questions go to the Texas Division of Workers’ Compensation.

The trucking company is from another state, or the driver was, and I do not know who to sue.

That is normal. Interstate carriers are registered with the federal government and are sued where the crash happened. The hard part is not finding them; it is finding every company in the chain, the carrier, the broker, the shipper, the owner of the trailer, before the paper trail goes cold.

A crash in Texas is a Texas case. The federal safety regulations that govern the carrier are evidence in it.

A case, and the chain of companies is where it is won.

Read Trucking Company Liability. You can buy the crash report from TxDOT crash report purchase (CR-3) while you wait.