Clearwater Hit and Run Truck Accidents

When it comes to hit and run accidents, the immediate assumption is that the accident involved personal vehicles, and that one of their drivers reacted to the incident by fleeing the scene. That being said, in Clearwater, one of those vehicles can easily be a truck, and if the driver of the truck causes an accident and then flees the scene, the situation becomes a hit and run, and one that is dealing with a truck driver.

A hit and run accident is classified as an accident that is caused by another driver where they come into contact with another person or vehicle and they flee the scene, either initially, or they try to evade the situation altogether and do not standby to report the accident to see if there are any injuries and wait for law enforcement to arrive.

If you have been the victim of a hit and run accident with a truck that has left you injured, you should immediately seek medical treatment. Once the situation has been stabilized, you should call law enforcement to report the hit and run, and right after that, the next thing to do is to contact a Clearwater truck accident lawyer to represent you in the hit and run case. These kinds of cases tend to take a long and winding trip through the legal process, and having an experienced attorney by your side is a crucial step on the path to recovery.

Difference Between Hit and Run Cases and Other Accident Cases

In many hit and run accidents dealing with truck drivers, they know that they have logged too many hours, that they were texting while driving, or that they were driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Many times, they do not want to stop at the accident because they fear to lose their job or potentially get arrested for whatever they were doing wrong when the accident took place.

Sometimes with hit and run accidents, it is more difficult to find the insurance policy of the at-fault driver because they were not at the scene when law enforcement arrived. Other things that are difficult are trying to nail down who the actual driver was. Many times, if it is a Walmart truck or another large company truck, the investigation knows that it was a truck driving for that company, but authorities do not know who the driver was that was actually at fault.

There are many difficulties in a trucking hit and run case when it comes to trying to nail down the facts and figure out exactly what happened.

Recoverable Damages

The recoverable damages in a hit and run truck accident case are medical bills and injuries, lost wages, loss of consortium, out-of-pocket expenses, and pain and suffering.

The only difference between recovering damages in a typical accident versus a hit and run, especially involving a truck, is that many times, the damages will be going after the driver’s own insurance company coverage that they have for themselves if they are not able to actually find the defendant to attach insurance.

How A Clearwater Truck Accident Lawyer Can Help

One of the major differences for an attorney when there is a hit and run claim is that they want to get an investigator on the case to try to investigate and find who exactly was the at-fault party and try to attach some insurance policy to their action as soon as possible, to make sure that every effort is put forth in trying to find the at-fault driver.

If it is not a hit and run case and you have all the facts, then you can go right into the medical treatment, and you are not necessarily as worried about proving fault in the case if liabilities have already been admitted by the other party or if you have some kind of citation from law enforcement.

If it is a hit and run, then liability becomes a problem. Attaching who the defendant is in the case is much more difficult than a case where both parties are present when law enforcement arrives, and a Clearwater hit and run truck accident lawyer is able to help you pursue the case and seek damages for the injuries you have had to sustain.