Has a Washington truck accident adversely affected your life and the lives of those you love by driving carelessly or in reckless disregard of you or your loved one?

Sharing the road with trucks is a situation that is often fraught with danger.

As a driver of a passenger vehicle, your experience on the road requires you to be constantly alert and forces you to be prepared for unexpected obstacles such as construction work, debris on the road, and the changing speeds of other drivers around you.

Add to your commute an increasing number of large commercial vehicles such as semis, postal and package delivery trucks, and an assortment of heavy cargo vans, and commercial drivers consistently disregard the clear and present danger presented by the sheer size of the truck or commercial vehicle they drive. Such disregard places us all at risk of serious injury or death.

What are you, as a responsible and law-abiding driver, supposed to do to keep yourself and your family safe from such carelessness? What should you do if the unthinkable happens and you are involved in a serious truck accident, especially a collision that involves a catastrophic injury?

You need the services of a law firm experienced in fighting the insurance and trucking companies that fight tirelessly to place the blame on the innocent driver and attack your injuries and medical treatment as not necessary or unreasonable. While this sounds ridiculous, it happen in virtually every truck accident case given the amount of money at risk.

Trucks often weigh 20 to 30 times more than passenger cars. In 2003, 4,855 people died in large truck crashes. A mere 14% of the fatalities were the truck occupants, 73% were people in cars and other passenger vehicles, and 10% were pedestrians, bicyclists, or motorcyclists.

Every 16 minutes, another person in the United States. will die or be injured in a truck accident. In 2002, 434,000 large trucks were involved in traffic accidents in the United States; around 130,000 people were injured in those accidents. In addition, 4,542 of those trucks were involved in fatal traffic accidents that killed a total of 4,897 people. As trucks compete for space on our already overcrowded highways, the results can be disastrous, with occupants of smaller vehicles often becoming the unfortunate statistics in Washington truck accidents.

If you are in a Washington truck accident, it is important that you do everything you can to document the events surrounding the accident. Your observations, photos, relevant eyewitness accounts, doctor diagnosis, and more are essential elements of your truck accident claim. This information and your participation in your case greatly assists us in obtaining the maximum settlement you are entitled to under Washington law.

Traffic accidents involving trucks that hit passenger vehicles or motorcycles can cause catastrophic injuries.

Unfortunately, a case involving a truck is not simply a big automobile accident. They are highly complex cases that involve a web of state, federal, and sometimes international regulations that require a lawyer with extensive experience in this area. A Washington personal injury lawyer from Foster Law Offices takes great pride in holding insurance and trucking companies responsible to the greatest degree available under the law for the careless and reckless actions that truck drivers regularly demonstrate on our Washington roadways.

It takes considerable knowledge and resources to adequately investigate and prepare a truck accident case to ensure that the victims' rights are protected and the maximum settlement is obtained for the innocent victim. Insurance companies may attempt to deny coverage for an accident, so it is important to have experienced legal representation. In Washington, a truck accident attorney at Foster Law Offices can investigate your case and help recover the compensation in which you are entitled to under Washington law.

Tractor-trailer or semi-truck accidents, and commercial truck accidents in general, can be more complicated than car accidents. Sometimes the victim of a truck driver's negligence can sue the individual driver as well as the trucking company, the owner of the trailer or even the owner of the load being carried by the truck. Numerous defendants and insurance carriers might be involved.

Washington, as well as the United States government has special laws that apply to trucks. These laws limit the number of hours a driver can drive without resting, the weight of the load being carried, the lanes a truck may lawfully travel on certain roadways and virtually every aspect of trucking. Frequently, the violation of these laws is the reason that the accident occurred. We work with truck experts to get to the facts of each accident.

There are many different reasons for accidents involving large trucks include negligence on the part of the truck driver or the other vehicles involved. Others include:

• Aggressive drivers
• Unrealistic schedules
• Failure to inspect tires, brakes and lights
• Tailgating
• Long work-shifts
• Driver fatigue
• Cell phone use
• Failure to install blind spot mirrors
• Jackknifing
• Speeding and ignoring reduced truck speed limit

An 18-wheeler truck traveling at 70 miles per hour has twice as much energy and force as one traveling at 50 mph. In addition, automobiles are designed under Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards to encounter like size vehicles, not 80,000 pound trucks. Added hazards include the absence of rear and side bumpers and high front bumpers that punch into automobile passenger compartments. Together, these factors account for the high percentage of serious injuries and deaths in these crashes.

Our truck accident personal injury attorneys represent injured victims in truck-related personal injury claims against insurance companies and the large corporations that operate tractor-trailer, semi-truck and commercial trucks. We know how to maximize results on behalf of our injured clients.

If you are injured in a truck accident of any kind, we can assist you in receiving compensation for your injuries, lost wages and related damages. We always handle truck accident personal injury cases on a contingent fee basis, so no matter how complex the case becomes, there is no fee unless we recover money for you.