Tennessee Semi-Truck Accident Attorney Chris Gilreath

What To Do After an 18-Wheeler Crash

Video transcript:

Chris Gilreath:

Primarily, they're trying to figure out what risks the trucking company faces if they were at fault and someone was hurt.

Rob Rosenthal:

Do you know what to do if you're injured in a crash with a big rig, and where to turn for help? Well we're going to find out right now because that's what we're going to ask the lawyer.

Hi again, everybody. I'm Rob Rosenthal with askthelawyers.com, and my guest is Tennessee attorney Chris Gilreath. I want to remind you, if you want to ask questions about your specific situation, head over to askthelawyers.com, click the button at the top of the page that says “Ask a Lawyer”, and you can ask away right there.

Chris, we appreciate you taking some time to talk with us and answer our questions.

Chris Gilreath:

Great to be with you, Rob.

Rob Rosenthal:

Let's just talk about trucking accidents in general. How big of a problem is it? Are there a lot of trucking accidents on the roads in Tennessee? Are there a lot of commercial trucks on the roads in Tennessee?

Chris Gilreath:

Well, if you've been outside any time lately, you've seen that there are trucks going to and from everywhere, especially on interstates and major highways through cities and even in the country. Tennessee particularly is what some people call a pass-through state, which means there's a lot of truck traffic that goes through Tennessee. I-40 itself is an interstate highway that runs from California to North Carolina, and in East Tennessee, I-75 runs from the Canadian border all the way to the southern tip of Florida. So there's a lot of back and forth traffic in Tennessee.

Rob Rosenthal:

It seems like more and more these days, a lot of commercial trucks have dash cams and there's video all the time. How common is that? And is that helpful when there's an accident?

Chris Gilreath:

It's very common when you're talking about larger interstate trucking companies. A lot of companies for their own protection and for the protection of their drivers will use dash cameras. If you can imagine driving a big vehicle, there's a lot of passenger cars that are in a hurry to go to and from places locally, especially in cities. You can imagine if you're driving across the country in a tractor-trailer loaded with tens of thousands of pounds, you want to protect that cargo and make sure that cars zipping around you are not interfering with the way that the truck is operating. It adds a lot of factual information into what's happened.

Rob Rosenthal:

What happens with that video? Is it part of the stuff that they're required to hold on to, or is that something that if you want to get access to you're going to have to have your attorney do that?

Chris Gilreath:

Yeah, it's considered information that's proprietary to the trucking company. There's no rule that requires that a dash cam video from a truck or a tractor-trailer be made publicly available, even to people involved in a crash. Sometimes a highway patrol or a police officer will ask if there's dash cam footage if they're investigating a serious crash; they'll sometimes try to collect that evidence. But generally you'll need an attorney to get access to that information because the trucking company will generally keep it to itself.

Rob Rosenthal:

Tell me what happens, in your experience, right after the accident happens. There's a collision, there's injuries, from the trucking standpoint. I've heard something about response teams? Tell me what those are and what usually goes on on the trucking side of things.

Chris Gilreath:

So on the trucking side of things—it's typically with larger companies, a small local company would not normally have the funding to have a response team—but if it's a very busy interstate trucking company, they will have teams positioned to different regions, and it happens mostly in the case of really serious collisions. If a truck has turned over off the side of the road; if there's a fire; if there is a kind of a hazard spill of some kind, they will have teams come in with special training to try secure their cargo, make sure they understand the facts and circumstances of what's happened, to gather evidence, to talk to highway patrolman and first responders that may have responded to the scene; if there are eye witnesses, those trucking company teams will come and try to lock down as many facts as they can as to what happened, because they want to make sense of what's happened for the understanding of what potential risks they face going forward.

Rob Rosenthal:

So are they there also to make sure the person who's injured is taken care of and that things are handled fairly? Or are they just there looking out for their own interests?

Chris Gilreath:

Well, first and foremost they're there to look out for their own interest. It's possible that they will take an interest in whether anyone is hurt—and they don't necessarily always reach out and want to know if someone in another vehicle is injured or not although they may want to understand the facts and circumstances of what's happened—but primarily they're trying to figure out what risks the trucking company faces if they were at fault and someone was hurt.

Rob Rosenthal:

It would seem to me if I'm in a passenger vehicle and I'm in a collision with a big rig and I'm seriously injured or catastrophically injured, and I'm at the hospital, I'm probably not thinking about my legal case at that point. Whereas it seems like the trucking company is immediately thinking about the legal case. Does that happen? Is that usually the way that happens? And does that make it even more important that the person in the passenger vehicle get someone like yourself on their side as soon as possible?

Chris Gilreath:

There are good people that work for trucking companies, and they are good people that are out on the highways, but the trucking companies are in business to be in business. So when they're dealing with situations involving their equipment, they're making business decisions, so that they can continue to go forward and do what they do. So because the equipment is large and it's expensive, there's a lot of potential risks involved for them to stay in business; they want to make sure that they understand the scope and the gravity of what's happened. They certainly can reach out if they choose to, but their primary purpose is to make sure that their business is handled.

Rob Rosenthal:

In your experience, after something like this happens, does evidence sometimes go missing? How can a person who's injured help make sure that doesn't happen?

Chris Gilreath:

You can imagine if it's a messy scene or a complicated collision, or maybe it's something that happens at night—maybe it's raining, maybe there's water involved, or some sort of other liquids that really make a mess of the scene—sometimes not all of the evidence gets collected. You will often have even law enforcement teams come and they will do what they do. They will make good effort to record, sometimes take pictures, preserve evidence that's on the road, but not everything gets preserved, and so trucking companies again will sometimes bring their teams in and make sure that they've investigated as much as they can, and the person who's the least able to do that type of investigation is an individual who just happened to be involved in a collision with the big rig, and they're in a hospital; they're waiting on family to show up, they can't take time and they're not thinking about investigating a scene. They're just trying to live.

Rob Rosenthal:

It seems to me that it could be overwhelming in that kind of situation, especially as you've already mentioned, Chris, that some of these trucks are very big corporations, and they've also got big insurance companies that are trying to pay out as little as possible. Where can someone get help? What do they do?

Chris Gilreath:

Well, it's really important that if you're in a situation where you are seriously hurt and you're not sure what to do, reach out to a reputable lawyer in the area typically where the crash happened. Or if you happen to know someone at home and you're not near home when you're involved in a situation, certainly reach out to someone you trust, but you're going to want to at least contact someone who specializes in that type of work because they're going to know what information to look for, and they're better going to be able to represent you and your interest in the situations.

Rob Rosenthal:

I imagine life is turned upside down for that injured party. If they contact someone like yourself, do they need to be prepared, Chris, to come up with money out of pocket up front? Tell me how that works.

Chris Gilreath:

No. Generally people that work in personal injury litigation like myself, we don't charge money up front. We work on a percentage of the overall recovery that we can secure for you as a client. We carry the costs along the way. We know that you've been through a really tragic circumstance, and the last thing you need is another bill or an upfront payment that you can't even afford because you probably couldn't have even afforded the situation that you're in to begin with.

Rob Rosenthal:

Really helpful information, Chris. Thank you so much for taking some time and answering our questions.

Chris Gilreath:

Thank you, Rob.

Rob Rosenthal:

That's going to do it for this episode of Ask the Lawyer. My guest has been Tennessee attorney Chris Gilreath. Remember, if you want to ask questions about your specific situation, head to askthelawyers.com, there's a button at the top of the page that says “Ask a Lawyer”, and it'll walk you right through the very simple process. Thanks for watching. I'm Rob Rosenthal with
AskTheLawyers™.

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