Did you know an accident involving a fully loaded commercial truck can cause catastrophic damage in an accident? These vehicles can weigh as much as 80,000 pounds. In this video, St. Louis truck driver negligence accident lawyer Mark Cantor chats with Fox 2 anchor Chelsea Haynes, defining negligence and possible spoliation that can occur once a trucking company’s insurance gets involved. You must immediately get an aggressive lawyer to prevent spoliation from happening in the first place.
Call Cantor Injury Law at (314) 628-9999 or fill out our online contact form for a free consultation. We don’t collect any fees until we win.
Truck Driver Negligence Accident Lawyer Video
Video Transcript
Chelsea:
Getting hit by a large and fully loaded commercial truck can cause catastrophic damage. On average, these trucks can weigh 80,000 pounds. This next Ask The Legal Expert has been sponsored by the Cantor Law Office. They have a proven and successful track record when it comes to trucking accidents, and joining me now is Mark Cantor from Cantor Injury Law. Mark, thanks so much for being here with us today.
Mark Cantor:
Thanks for having me.
Chelsea:
Of course. And we are about to dive into a heavy topic, but we can have a little bit of a soft spot here on the show. I hear that someone special from your firm has a birthday today. So Erikia, happy birthday to you. I love this. Her face is beautiful.
Mark Cantor:
It takes a team, and Erikia started as my second paralegal, and now she’s our office manager and she’s great. So I want to wish her a happy and healthy birthday.
Chelsea:
I love that.
Mark Cantor:
Thank you for all you do.
Chelsea:
Well, congratulations, Erikia. And like you said, Mark, it really does take a team. There’s no I in team, and your team has helped you really be one of the best in the business. Tell us a little bit about trucking accidents. And this is one of the top cases that you all see, right?
Mark Cantor:
Yes. Thank you. So first of all, no one can say they’re better than Cantor Injury Law at handling these cases. I’ve done this for 30 years, and if you’re hit by a truck, you need aggressive representation, because these insurance companies are going to be fighting that case from the very second it happened. So you need to get a lawyer. I suggest that it should be Cantor Injury Law.
Chelsea:
Well, hey, you’re the expert. You’re the pro. That’s why you’re here today. Explain to us what negligence is, and what are some signs that you’re looking for when it comes to these cases?
Mark Cantor:
So negligence is the failure to use that degree of care that a very careful person uses under the same or similar circumstance. And so negligence in a trucking case is similar to a roadway collision case, but when you have a huge truck that hits a small car, it causes devastating injuries.
You need to collect the data. We look at these electronic data recorders for: how fast was the truck going? Did they apply their brake? When did they apply their brake? Were they on their phone? We look at all of that information, and bring an accident reconstructionist immediately so that we can see whether they were negligent.
And by the way, most truckers are great drivers, because they’re professionals, so when they’re not is when you need a lawyer. But 99.9% of the time, the truckers are the best ones on the road. So it’s not an attack or an assault against the trucking industry, but when they mess up, they mess up badly.
Chelsea:
And you just mentioned a lot of that data. A lot of that data can be found in the black box. Is that correct?
Mark Cantor:
Right. That’s the electronic data recording. That’s the speed and the brake rate, and there’s lots of information. How long was that truck running? We have federal laws that apply to interstate truckers, and so there’s a certain amount of hours they can drive and then they have to take a break. And so we look at all that, because that can be assigned a negligence if they were driving for too long or too fast or too far.
Chelsea:
And another term that we want to talk about today is spoliation. What is that?
Mark Cantor:
So spoliation is the destruction of evidence. So the longer you wait, the harder the case gets. So we send out a spoliation letter saying, “Hey, Mr. Trucking Company, save your black-box data. Save any video recording.” And sometimes they’ll say, “Oh, it gets destroyed after 30 or 90 days.” It never gets destroyed when the trucking company’s right, but when your case is right, all of a sudden, they can’t find it. So you need to get a lawyer right away, because the insurance company has.
Chelsea:
Well go ahead and call Cantor Injury Law. You can give them a call. Their number is 314-628-9999. Get a free consultation. You can also find them online at cantorinjurylaw.com, and they can handle your personal-injury case. Again, that number is 314-628-9999.
Mark, thanks so much again for being here with us today. Show off your jacket. Oh, looks amazing. I love it. He’s got a little bit of panache going on. Okay. Don’t go anywhere, St. Louis. We’ll be right back after this quick break.
We hope this video gives you a better idea of what a truck driver negligence accident lawyer does. Also, if you need the assistance of a personal injury lawyer in St. Louis be sure to call Cantor Injury Law today.