Kane Truck Accidents

Kane County Lawyers for Truck Accident Victims

The fifth most populous county in Illinois is Kane County. The county, and the cities within it, are served by numerous interstates, highways, and routes including I-88 and I-90; U.S. Highways 20, 30, and 24; and Illinois Routes 19, 25, 31, 38, 47, 56, 58, 62, 64, 68, 72, and 110; the Army Trail Road; the Randall Road; and Longmeadow Parkway. Increasingly in Kane County and elsewhere, trucks travel on these roads making time-sensitive deliveries. At the high speeds permissible on interstates and routes, these crashes can be catastrophic or cause multiple deaths. If you suffered injuries or a loved one passed away because of a commercial truck crash, call the trustworthy Kane County truck accident lawyers of Katz, Friedman, Eisenstein, Johnson, Bareck & Bertuca. We can put more than 60 years of experience to work for you.

Establishing Liability for Truck Accidents

Truck collisions and crashes can result in terrible tragedies. Often there are many victims, both drivers and passengers in smaller vehicles. As a truck accident, you may be staring down substantial medical bills, lost wages, and tremendous pain from catastrophic or life-changing injuries.

On top of these difficulties, when you make a claim against a truck driver’s insurance policy, there may be many others making similar claims for their own catastrophic injuries. A truck driver’s insurance policy may be exhausted quickly with similar claims arising out of the same incident made against it. With these circumstances, it is imperative to retain a knowledgeable attorney who can fully investigate the accident and bring all potentially responsible parties into the lawsuit to be held accountable.

In order to establish liability against the truck driver, our Kane County lawyers will likely need to establish negligence, which means we’ll need to show the truck driver breached the duty of reasonable care that was owed to you. A truck driver may breach this duty by doing any of the following:

• Speeding
• Distracted Driving
• Driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol
• Failure to obey traffic signs and signals
• Failing to check blind spots
• Leaving insufficient room
• Weaving
• Performing unsafe maneuvers or failing to yield.

Illinois has adopted the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSR), which include detailed rules about the hours of service that may be worked, logbooks, maintenance, cargo weight, and other matters, with the purpose of making the streets safer. When a truck driver fails to obey these regulations, our attorneys may be able to use it as prima facie evidence of negligence.

Comparative Fault

Other parties may be responsible for a truck accident in which you were injured, and it’s important to investigate how they may have contributed to the accident. Parties whose actions may lead to culpability include the trucking company, the truck manufacturer, a third party loading company, the mechanic, and other drivers on the road. When there are multiple parties involved in causing an accident, they may be held accountable under principles of comparative fault.

It’s important to look at the evidence to determine whether a trucking company should be held responsible for your injuries. Trucking companies can be vicariously or indirectly liable for their employees’ negligence. However, a trucking company can also be held liable for negligence in any of the following: hiring, supervising, or training. In some cases, unfortunately, trucking companies encourage their truck drivers to flout the FMCSR because they want to meet certain deadlines and increase their profits; it may be appropriate to pursue punitive damages from a trucking company who egregiously encourage rule-breaking by truck drivers. For instance, if a trucking company asked their drivers to break the hours of service rules and falsify logbooks and drive while fatigued to make deadlines, it would be appropriate to hold the company responsible for negligent supervision.

Consult a Kane County Truck Accident Lawyer

Whether you were injured or your loved one passed away in a truck crash, it’s important to seek legal representation. Discuss your legal options with the results-oriented Kane County truck accident lawyers of Katz, Friedman, Eisenstein, Johnson, Bareck & Bertuca. We’ve fought for best results for truck accident victims for more than 60 years and can also pursue relief on your behalf with an SSDI or workers’ compensation claim, as appropriate. Call us at 312-724-5846 or fill out our online form.