Are you struggling with serious injuries because of a recent truck accident in Santa Rosa, California? Don’t hesitate to reach out to the experienced legal team at Singleton Schreiber. You may have the right to seek compensation from the truck driver, the trucking company, or another liable party. Our top-rated Santa Rosa truck accident lawyers can help you fight for a maximum recovery.
Choosing Singleton Schreiber means putting a team of award-winning California trial attorneys with decades of experience in your corner. Through fearless advocacy, we’ve forced insurance companies, trucking services, and government agencies to pay our clients billions of dollars in settlements and jury awards.
Now, we’re here to make sure you’re compensated properly for your truck accident injuries. Call our law office in Santa Rosa to get started. Your first consultation is 100 percent free.
Why You’ll Want Singleton Schreiber Fighting For You After an 18-Wheeler Accident in Santa Rosa, CA
It can be intimidating to take on a trucking company or its insurer after an accident. These are powerful corporations with a lot of experience handling cases like yours. Fortunately, you have the right to hire a Santa Rosa personal injury lawyer to represent you.
Your choice of attorney and law firm matters. Here’s why truck accident victims and families in Santa Rosa consistently turn to Singleton Schreiber for help.
- We’ve helped injury victims and families win in excess of $2.5 Billion in monetary awards
- Clients work with local lawyers who are genuinely invested in their cases and benefit from our law firm’s expansive national resources
- Our award-winning litigators have been recognized as leaders in personal injury litigation by Best Lawyers in America, Super Lawyers, the Daily Journal, the National Law Journal, and other prestigious organizations
- Contingency fee representation means it costs nothing to hire our truck accident attorneys in Santa Rosa unless we win your case
- Our client-driven, determined legal strategies are backed by decades of collective experience
- Countless client testimonials and reviews highlight the impact our law firm has on the lives of the good people we represent
Don’t hesitate to contact our personal injury lawyers in Santa Rosa to discover the considerable benefits of working with our top-rated team. We’re available to take your call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Types of Truck Accident Cases We Handle
No two truck accidents are alike. Every crash will be different. When you’re fighting for compensation, it’s important to work with an attorney who not only understands this but embraces it. It can be the difference between getting a nominal settlement and securing a top-dollar financial award.
At Singleton Schreiber, our truck accident lawyers in Santa Rosa have considerable experience advocating for clients in cases involving:
- Truck rollovers
- Front-end collisions
- Rear-end collisions
- Broadside accidents
- T-Bone truck accidents
- Underride accidents
- Squeeze play accidents
- Jackknife accidents
- Blind spot truck accidents
- Lost load truck accidents
- Tire blowouts
- Fatal truck accidents
Show the trucking company that they no longer have the upper hand by trusting our top-rated law firm to fight for you. We offer a free consultation, so connect with our team to discuss the details of your truck accident case today.
What Are the Most Common Causes of Truck Accidents?
Trucks are a lot heavier and longer than other vehicles on the road. In fact, fully loaded tractor-trailers can weigh up to 80,000 pounds and span up to 70 feet. As a result, they can be quite difficult to navigate. Many times, these large commercial trucks haul dangerous cargo that can pose a serious threat to human health and safety. These are just a few of the reasons why the trucking industry is so heavily regulated by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and California state law.
Trucking regulations affect nearly every aspect of trucking operations - from driver hiring and licensing requirements to hours of service limitations to truck maintenance and inspections.
However, these safety regulations are only effective when they’re followed. Too often, our attorneys find that truck accidents happen because they’re not. Instead, truck drivers and trucking companies cut corners, ignore important safety protocols, and make poor decisions.
That’s why these are some of the leading causes of truck accidents in Santa Rosa:
- Distracted driving
- Driver fatigue
- Drunk driving
- Speeding
- Unsafe passing
- Illegal turns
- Braking errors
- Improper lane change
- Wide turns
- Unsecured cargo
- Improperly loaded cargo
- Failing to yield the right of way
- Vehicle malfunctions
- Road rage
- Following too closely
Sometimes, truck accidents can happen due to factors beyond a truck driver’s control, such as road defects, vehicle defects, and the recklessness of other drivers on the road.
Our California truck accident lawyers in Santa Rosa will carefully evaluate the details of your crash to fully understand what caused it. Once we’ve established the cause, we can begin to determine who’s at fault and ultimately liable for any damages you’ve suffered.
Understanding Liability For a Santa Rosa Tractor-Trailer Accident
Liability, simply put, means responsibility for harm caused. In California, anyone who contributed to your truck accident - either directly or indirectly - can be liable for your damages.
Ultimately, who’s on the hook for your medical bills, lost wages, and other losses will depend on the specific circumstances of your case.
Potentially liable parties might include a:
Truck driver
Truck drivers have a duty to adhere to state and federal trucking regulations, follow California traffic laws, and generally navigate a rig as safely as possible. When a truck driver is careless or makes a poor decision at the wheel, they can be personally responsible if they cause an accident in which someone else is injured or killed.
Trucking company
Trucking companies can be liable for negligent hiring, failing to provide appropriate training for their drivers, failing to conduct regular and thorough maintenance on their fleet of trucks, and other violations f FMCSA regulations.
Services can also be vicariously liable for a driver’s negligence or wrongful actions. In other words, if a truck driver is negligent, you can hold the trucking company accountable, too, as long as the driver was an employee and not a contractor.
Vehicle manufacturer
If a truck (or another vehicle involved in a crash) is defective, the company responsible for designing, manufacturing, or selling it can potentially be liable for a victim’s resulting injury or wrongful death.
Third party motorist
Sometimes the truck driver isn’t the only one who causes a truck accident. Sometimes they’re not at fault, at all. In some situations, the driver of a passenger vehicle, a motorcyclist, a bus driver, or another person on the road is negligent and causes an accident with a big rig.
Government agency
The state of California, Sonoma County, and the city of Santa Rosa all assume responsibility for roads and highways. Sometimes road defects - like potholes, uneven pavement, obscured signage, or poor design - cause truck accidents. In these situations, the government agency responsible for the road could potentially be liable for a crash.
Ultimately, anyone who plays a part in your semi-truck accident must be held accountable. Trust our award-winning legal team in Santa Rosa to help you get the justice you deserve.
What Damages Are Available to Truck Accident Victims?
Truck accidents can be costly - financially, physically, and emotionally. Fortunately, the state of California gives victims the opportunity to seek compensatory damages to help offset the expenses and suffering that are related to a crash.
Compensatory damages can include two distinct types of awards: economic and non-economic.
Economic damages are designed to help you deal with the costs and losses related to your truck accident, such as:
- Present and future medical bills
- Disability
- Reduced earning capacity
- Lost wages
- Rehabilitation
- Nursing care
- Property damage
- Costs paid out of pocket
- Funeral expenses
Recovering economic damages should help to alleviate the financial stress and burdens you experience.
Non-economic damages are designed to compensate for experiences that are much more personal and intimate. These types of consequences don’t have a set cost or value.
They can include:
- Pain and suffering
- Emotional distress
- Post-traumatic stress disorder
- Loss of consortium
- Reduced quality of life
- Chronic physical pain
- Inconvenience
- Disfigurement
These types of awards can be difficult to value. So, you can expect the trucking service and its insurance company to actively work to downplay the extent to which your life has changed since the accident.
Our Santa Rosa truck accident attorneys will be prepared for these tactics. We’ll bring in expert witnesses to weigh in and provide insight as we build your case. When it’s time to negotiate, we won’t accept anything less than your truck accident case is worth. If the defense continuously tries to lowball you, they’ll have to take their chances against our award-winning litigators at trial.
How Much Money Can I Get If I File a Truck Accident Claim?
Many things can potentially influence the amount of money you might be able to get after a truck accident in Santa Rosa.
- What physical injuries did you suffer?
- Can you still work?
- Are you disabled in any way?
- How has the accident affected your quality of life?
- What have you had to pay out of pocket for a rental vehicle, repairing damaged property, and other crash-related consequences?
- Do you share responsibility for the truck accident?
- What insurance policies cover your accident?
While every situation will be different, you can generally expect a higher payout when you’ve suffered injuries that are debilitating and affect most aspects of your life. That said, even moderate injuries can be costly and traumatic. So, don’t underestimate how much your truck accident case might be worth.
Instead, dig into the details with an experienced truck accident lawyer near you in Santa Rosa, CA. The more you know about your case, the better positioned you’ll be to maximize your recovery.
What Happens to My Truck Accident Settlement if I’m Blamed For a California Truck Accident?
You can still recover compensation if you’re partly responsible for a truck accident in Santa Rosa. However, you’ll only be entitled to a limited monetary award.
Under California’s pure comparative negligence statute, damages are reduced proportionately to fault.
Be ready for insurance companies, trucking services, and drivers to blame you for the truck accident. The more responsibility you share for causing a car accident with a truck, the less you’ll ultimately be able to recover when your personal injury case is resolved.
Our Santa Rosa car accident lawyers will help you counter these victim-blaming tactics and work to get you every cent you need and deserve.
Helping You Seek Compensation For All of Your Truck Accident Injuries
Trucks can do considerable damage when they’re involved in a traffic accident. Unfortunately, it’s often innocent occupants of other vehicles who suffer the worst consequences.
At Singleton Schreiber, we’re here to help you seek compensation for all of the injuries you’ve recently suffered in a Santa Rosa truck accident, including:
- Nerve damage
- Soft tissue injury
- Burn injury
- Amputation injury
- Crush injury
- Eye injury
- Concussion injury
- Traumatic brain injury
- Spinal cord injury
- Neck injury
- Back injury
- Whiplash injury
- Chest injury
- Leg injury
- Catastrophic injury
- Wrongful death of a loved one
Following an accident with a large truck, it’s critical to call 911 and ask to have first responders dispatched to the scene. If you’re not transported to the hospital by an ambulance, make sure you get yourself there as soon as you can. Many times, the rush of adrenaline you experience as a crash victim can hide critical signs of injury and trauma. Getting checked out right away can help to ensure that all of your truck accident injuries are documented and treated properly.
Santa Rosa, California Truck Accident Statistics
According to FMCSA crash data, 12,136 large truck accidents were reported across the state of California in 2023. While this represented a 10 percent decrease from the year prior, that’s still an average of 33 truck accidents in the Golden State every single day.
More localized crash data provided by the University of California at Berkeley reveals that 84 of the state’s truck accidents took place in Sonoma County and resulted in 123 injuries and one death. 14 of these commercial truck accidents took place in Santa Rosa, the county seat, where a total of 19 people were injured.
All of Santa Rosa’s truck accidents were classified as either broadside accidents, rear-end collisions, or sideswipes. Hotspots for Santa Rosa truck accidents include Highway 12, Highway 101, and other heavily traveled roads like College Ave, N Dutton Ave, and Guerneville Rd.
What’s the Filing Deadline For California Truck Accident Lawsuits?
It’s important to take prompt legal action if you’ve been hurt in a big rig accident in Santa Rosa. The state of California limits the amount of time you’ll have to seek compensation from an insurance company or another liable party.
The statute of limitations will depend on the type of harm suffered and, in certain situations, other factors:
- Personal injury: two years
- Wrongful death: two years
- Property damage: three years
- Child injury: two years from a child’s 18th birthday
- Government tort claim: 6 months
- Workers’ compensation: one year
You have to file your claim within the applicable statute of limitations. If you miss it, the state will not allow you to demand compensation for your financial losses and suffering.
Protect your rights and increase the odds of a successful outcome by calling Singleton Schreiber for help as soon as you can after a Santa Rosa truck accident. Our team is always here to take your call - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Trust Our Santa Rosa Truck Accident Attorneys to Fight For You
You’ve been injured or lost a family member because a truck driver in Santa Rosa was careless. Now, you have the right to hold them accountable. However, you need time to focus on your recovery and get back on your feet. Don’t hesitate to call Singleton Schreiber for help.
Our Santa Rosa truck accident attorneys will invest decades of experience into your case and lead your fight for compensation.
You’ll be able to count on our skilled team to:
- Investigate your truck accident
- Determine if the truck driver or trucking service violated critical safety regulations
- Analyze black box data, dashcam footage, cell phone records, truck maintenance and inspection reports, driver records, witness statements, and other compelling evidence
- Enlist expert witnesses to consult throughout the claims process
- Represent your best interests during negotiations with the trucking service and its insurance company
If you don’t receive a fair settlement offer, the defense better prepare to take on our award-winning trial attorneys in court. We won’t rest until you’ve been compensated properly for your devastating injuries and trauma.
Discover how local lawyers with national resources have won billions for clients by calling our Santa Rosa law office today. Your first consultation is absolutely free.
Practice Areas
- Personal Injury Overview
- Amazon Delivery Driver Accidents
- Bicycle Accidents
- Brain Injuries
- Car Accidents
- Dog Bite Injuries
- E-Scooter Injuries
- Motorcycle Accidents
- Pedestrian Accidents
- Premises Liability
- Product Liability
- Slip and Fall Accidents
- Spinal Cord Injuries
- Truck Accidents
- Uber Accidents
- Wrongful Death