Blind Spots

Motorists run the risk of serious harm if they are caught in a truck’s blind spot. If you were hurt in a crash caused by a commercial driver, you may be able to pursue an injury claim against the trucker and possibly his or her employer. The tenacious truck accident attorneys at Frankl Kominsky handle complex cases for victims throughout Palm Beach County. We can craft a strategy to help you seek damages if a careless tractor-trailer driver caused your injuries.

All vehicles have blind spots, or places on their sides that are not visible to the driver through the side and rear view mirrors. These areas on a truck are significantly larger than those on passenger cars or most other vehicles. Because of their size, big rigs have huge blind spots in the front, rear, passenger side, and driver side. This means that a smaller vehicle can completely disappear from a driver’s view. A devastating accident can happen if a trucker tries to switch lanes, make a wide turn, or stop abruptly without verifying that there is no car in the blind spots.

You can hold a commercial driver, and possibly a trucking company, liable for your injuries if you were hurt in a truck accident. If you can prove an at-fault party’s negligence, you may be able to recover compensation.

To show negligence, you must establish duty of care, breach, causation, and damages. Like everyone on Florida roads, truck drivers must operate their vehicles with care to avoid posing hazards to others, particularly when making potentially dangerous maneuvers like wide turns. Commercial drivers must be properly trained before operating a tractor-trailer, and they should use those skills to reduce the risk of accidents. A trucker who fails to exercise the proper level of care may have violated his or her duty. You have the burden of showing that the truck driver’s actions amounted to a breach of the duty, and that the breach actually caused your injury.

The commercial driver’s employer may be liable under a theory of negligence or vicarious liability. If a trucking company was careless in hiring or supervising the driver, it may be directly accountable for your injuries. For instance, if it did not review hours-of-service records, and the trucker was in fact fatigued when the accident occurred, the company may be directly liable for your injury. Moreover, respondeat superior is a legal doctrine that may hold employers vicariously liable for negligent actions by their workers. You must establish the employer-employee relationship and show that the driver’s careless conduct happened within his or her scope of employment to successfully apply this rule.

In some instances, the negligence of a car driver may be partly responsible for an accident in which he or she was hurt. A motorist may have lingered in the blind spot or attempted to squeeze between the truck and curb while a commercial driver was making a wide turn. In these cases, a court may determine that the victim’s careless behavior contributed to his or her own injuries. You can recover damages, however, if your negligence was not the only cause of the crash.

Truck accident injuries can be catastrophic. If you prove that the defendant in your case is liable for your harm, you can possibly get compensation for your current and future medical care, lost income, property damage, pain and suffering, and more. Florida limits the time you have to file a negligence claim to two years.

At Frankl Kominsky, we are committed to helping victims recover the compensation they deserve after an accident near West Palm Beach or elsewhere in Palm Beach County. Our diligent tractor trailer accident lawyers are ready to help you hold a commercial driver, his or her employer, and any other potentially at-fault party accountable for their negligence. We serve clients in Delray Beach, Boca Raton, and Lake Worth, among other nearby communities. Call our office today at (855) 800-8000 or contact us online for a free initial consultation. We speak Spanish and Creole.