Freight and Cargo Hazards
Raleigh Accident and Injury Lawyer
Truck accidents are not always the fault of the driver — improper freight handling, loading or weight distribution can make an otherwise safe rig extremely hazardous to handle. If you have been involved in a truck accident with a jackknifed semi tractor-trailer combination, an oversize load, or the loss of freight or cargo into a traffic lane, contact Raleigh truck accident attorney Carl Nagle for a free consultation about your legal options.
At Nagle & Associates in Raleigh and our other four North Carolina locations, our lawyers offer highly personalized client service to truck accident victims whose injuries might have resulted from poor freight handling practices. Careful accident investigation is necessary to identify all of the potentially liable defendants in a semi accident case, because of the complex contractual and corporate relationships characteristic of the industry.
The shipper might be using an independent contractor for a driver, a freight broker to book the trip, and the badly loaded trailer might be owned by an international shipping company. It might have been loaded, unloaded, and loaded again in ports and cargo terminals all over the country. Our skill with investigating truck accidents of all kinds can help ensure that everyone with a role in the accident will be identified and held to account.
Sometimes it can be hard to tell whether poor freight handling or negligent driving caused a given accident. This question can come up in cases involving poorly trained drivers or drivers inexperienced with the handling characteristics of certain rigs, such as flatbeds, gravel haulers, or even moving vans — any load subject to weight shifts, or that handle differently depending on total weight, can prove dangerous on curves, grades, or emergency traffic conditions.
We urge any prospective client to contact us as soon as possible after the accident. Not only can we intervene immediately on your behalf to protect your interests and advance your case, you should be aware that truck inspection records and driver trip logs can be extremely valuable as evidence in any trucking accident case. After three months, however, these records can be legally discarded. We can force the trucking company to preserve and produce this evidence. The sooner you call us, the faster we can go to work for you to preserve essential evidence of liability. These records often prove that unsafe trucks and overworked, fatigued drivers were the reason "why" the accident occurred. If so, the victim's claims become much more valuable.
To learn more about your rights in a truck accident case caused by unsafe freight handling practices, contact a skilled Raleigh accident and injury attorney at any of our firm's five North Carolina locations.
