Urbana Overweight / Overloaded Truck Accidents

Seasoned Attorneys for Urbana Overweight or Overloaded Truck Accidents

Most of Urbana, which is in central Illinois, is positioned south of I-74, which runs northwest to southwest in parallel to U.S. Route 6. Three exits serve the city. Downtown Urbana, which has a historic district and is the site of live music on Saturday nights, is southwest of the intersection of U.S. 45 and U.S. 150, which runs 571 miles from Illinois to the southeast part of the country. If you were injured in an overweight or overloaded truck accident, it’s important to seek legal counsel. The seasoned Urbana overweight truck accident lawyers of Katz, Friedman, Eisenstein, Johnson, Bareck & Bertuca has more than 60 years of experience and may be able to represent you.

Establishing Fault for an Overweight Truck Accident

Commercial trucks can carry weight safely only up to a certain, specified limit. Unfortunately, some trucking companies allow their trucks to be overloaded. When they have too much cargo or more cargo than they are permitted to have, trucks are especially hazardous. Overweighted trucks may, because of the excess cargo, increase speed drastically when traveling downhill, experience a raised center of gravity that makes a rollover more likely, experience a shift to the rear that impacts steering, increase pressure on tires resulting in a blowout, result in tilting when the truck hits a bump in the road, or cause cargo to fall on the road, which may lead drivers to swerve to avoid it, thereby causing secondary accidents. Drivers can quickly lose control of an overweighted truck, especially when the weather conditions are poor, or the road is inadequately maintained.

Trucks on interstate highways are required to abide by restrictions imposed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Certain trucking companies and drivers violate rules in order to transport cargo efficiently, but therefore increase the chances of harm to those with whom the truck driver shares the road. There are random inspections at weigh stations, but sometimes overweight trucks are missed.

Parties potentially responsible for an overweight truck accident include truck drivers, trucking companies, third party loading companies, mechanics, the truck manufacturer, and other drivers. When our attorneys represent a client injured by an overweighted truck in Urbana, we try to bring in all parties responsible for the increased weight and the accident.

Trucking companies, for instance, that look the other way or encourage their drivers to operate vehicles that are overloaded, could be held accountable under a theory of negligent supervision. A third party loading company that misloads the cargo so that the truck is off-balance could also bear responsibility for an overweighted truck accident. The truck driver has a responsibility to inspect the truck before taking it out, and if he decided to ignore the overweighted truck or an imbalanced load, he may held accountable, as well.

Truck Accident Lawyers to Win Damages

If you were injured in a truck accident, our firm will try to establish the liability of one or more parties to ensure that you recover the full scope of damages to which you’re entitled for your injuries. These can include both economic and noneconomic losses, but generally, a damages award is higher when injuries are catastrophic; that is, they are usually higher when injuries are so significant they have permanently changed the plaintiff’s life. Economic losses are typically documented, but in some cases, we will need to retain an expert to determine the amount of losses, particularly when future losses, such as future lost wages are concerned.

Consult a Seasoned Urbana Lawyer About an Overweight Truck Accident

Multiple people or entities may bear responsibility for an overweight or overloaded truck accident. If you were injured or a loved one died as a result of a crash, you should call the seasoned Urbana overweight truck accident lawyers of Katz, Friedman, Eisenstein, Johnson, Bareck & Bertuca. Our firm represents accident victims, and also handles SSDI benefits and workers’ compensation claims, which allows us to provide effective and broad legal representation to the injured. Call our law firm at 312-724-5846 or complete our online form.