National truck accident lawyer Eric Hageman says minimum liability limits for commercial trucking companies are grossly outdated and need to be raised significantly for the sake of motorists who are killed in truck accidents or injured for life. Mr. Hageman represents clients whose medical bills and personal injury claims reach into the millions of dollars.
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Under national law set in the mid-1980s, trucking firms are only required to hold insurance policies with minimum liability limits of $750,000 for general freight hauling and $5 million for the transportation of certain hazardous materials. Other hazardous materials require insurance coverage for only a minimum of $1 million.
“The minimum liability limits are completely inadequate for taking care of people who are seriously injured or killed by trucks,” Hageman said. “After 30 years of inaction, raising the levels is an absolute necessity.”
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) recently released a financial responsibility study and Congress in poised to consider whether the minimum insurance levels should be raised. The legislation would affect general freight and passenger carriers, as well as hazardous materials carriers. Moreover, it would be beneficial to everyday motorists who are forced to deal with commercial trucks that keep getting bigger and faster.
Hageman said the change is crucial when you consider the advances in medicine that have taken place over the past 30 years and the subsequent increase in medical options and expenses. More lives are being saved, but the cost of care is understandably higher. A $1 million insurance policy is woefully inadequate in most cases, even when injuries are not life threatening, he said. Even the FMCSA has concluded that current minimum financial responsibility limits for the commercial motor vehicle industry are inadequate to meet the costs of some crashes.
Hageman won over $16 million for his clients in 2014, including $5 million for a motorcyclist hit by an 18-wheeler and $4 million for a family in a wrongful death lawsuit. He previously won a truck accident verdict of more than $4 million on behalf of the family of a bicyclist who was run over and killed by a big rig. A well-known truck crash causation study estimates that trucks are at fault for crashes at a 45 percent rate overall. When someone is killed, the rate is closer to 30 percent.
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Small trucking firms oppose any increase. But if high-risk behavior such as unsafe driving and poor maintenance are linked to finacially weak carriers, increasing the minimum insurance levels may remove marginally profitable unsafe carriers from the roads.
From a truck accident lawsuit perspective, truck crashes are different than other vehicle accidents because of the federal laws that govern the trucking industry. Federal regulations require that certain evidence must be maintained, but only for a limited amount of time. For example, the driver’s log may be destroyed after six months if your lawyer does not obtain a court order or take other immediate action. The first step our lawyers take is to send the trucking company a spoliation letter, which puts the company on notice that it has to preserve and protect evidence relating to the accident.
Contact our Minnesota lawyers about your auto insurance claim.
More information:
- Find out what to do if you are injured by an unsafe semi truck driver. We look for evidence of speeding, using a cell phone, a history of traffic law violations, etc.
- If a semi truck tire hit our car and killed my husband, what are my rights as the wife? If the truck driver was at fault, you most likely have a wrongful death claim. You will need to discuss this with your lawyer.
- Cargo tank rollover accidents are often caused by truck driver error. However, it can take an enormous amount of work to uncover enough evidence to prove this.