Blind-Spot Truck Accidents in Los Angeles

Most drivers know that trucks have large blind spots, but avoiding them can be tricky, especially in heavy traffic. Although drivers should do their best to avoid traveling in a truck’s blind spot, it is a trucker’s responsibility to know the position of the vehicles around them.

Truckers can get distracted and lose track of other vehicles, and may change lanes or merge into a vehicle in its blind spot. Our skilled attorneys represent people injured in blind spot truck accidents in Los Angeles. Contact us as soon as possible after the wreck, and we can explore your legal options.

Truckers Are Responsible for Monitoring Their Blind Spots

A truck’s blind spot depends on how long the trailer is and how high above the road the trucker sits. For a typical tractor-trailer, the blind spot extends across two lanes of traffic on either side and more than a car length ahead and behind. Smaller trucks have smaller blind spots, but they are still significant.

Part of a truck driver’s training includes learning how to keep track of nearby vehicles that they cannot see in their mirrors. Technology like cameras and lane incursion alarms can help alert a truck driver to a vehicle in its blind spot, but the driver is ultimately responsible for staying attentive to nearby traffic. When a commercial driver fails to use the utmost care to avoid an accident with a vehicle in the truck’s blind spot, they are negligent.

When a collision occurs, the negligent party must pay the losses of anyone who suffers injuries. Our Los Angeles attorneys could collect persuasive evidence demonstrating that the truck driver’s negligence contributed to a blind spot crash, triggering the trucking company’s obligation to pay compensation to injured parties.

Allocating Fault in a Blind Spot Crash

Even though a trucker must monitor vehicles nearby, drivers must try to avoid driving in a truck’s blind spot. In heavy or merging traffic, it can be impossible to avoid a truck’s blind spot, but when there is an option, traveling in a truck’s blind spot could be negligent.

California Civil Code § 1714 makes everyone involved in an accident responsible for their own actions. When an injured person’s negligence was a factor in a wreck, they must absorb a percentage of their damages equal to their portion of responsibility.

Insurers for trucking companies will use this law to limit their liability by shifting responsibility toward an injured driver. The savvy accident attorneys at our Los Angeles firm understand how to counter these attempts and work to limit the degree of responsibility attributed to an injured driver in a blind spot wreck.

Establishing a Person’s Damages

In the legal context, the losses a claimant suffers are called their damages. People injured in vehicle accidents are entitled to economic and non-economic damages.

Economic damages are losses with a fixed value or a value that can be accurately estimated. Past and future medical expenses, lost wages, incidental expenses, and diminished earning capacity are all examples of economic damages. Non-economic damages are losses without a fixed value, such as inconvenience, emotional distress, physical pain, or scarring.

Accident survivors and the families of people killed in truck accidents may underestimate their damages. Working with one of our Los Angeles attorneys to pursue compensation after a blind spot truck crash ensures a settlement or verdict that adequately compensates an injured person’s damages.

Seek Compensation After a Blind Spot Truck Accident with Our Los Angeles Attorneys

If you were involved in a blind spot truck accident in Los Angeles, you may have suffered significant injuries. You need time to heal and recover.

Contact the team at our firm as soon as possible after the crash. We can support you through your recovery while preparing a strong case to obtain appropriate compensation for your truck accident injuries.