What to Do After a Truck Accident

If this just happened and you are reading this on your phone, start here: the trucking company already knows. Most carriers have a rapid response protocol that kicks in within hours of a serious crash, sometimes within the hour. An investigator may be photographing skid marks before you have been discharged from the hospital. That is not a conspiracy, it is standard practice in the industry, and it means the evidence is being collected right now by people who do not work for you.

Here is what to do about it.

1. Call 911 and make sure a report gets written

On a freeway, that means the California Highway Patrol. On a surface street inside city limits, it is usually the local police department. Do not let anyone talk you into handling it privately, and do not agree to skip the report because the driver seems nice or says their company will take care of it. The report is the spine of your claim.

If you are physically able, stay at the scene until officers arrive. If you are not, that is fine. Your health comes first and the report can be supplemented later.

2. Photograph the DOT number on the cab door

This is the single most valuable thing a person can do at a truck crash scene, and almost nobody knows to do it.

Every commercial truck is required to display a USDOT number on the side of the cab, usually a few inches tall, next to or under the company name. Photograph it. If there is a separate CA number, photograph that too. Get the trailer number if it is a tractor trailer, because the trailer frequently belongs to a different company than the truck pulling it.

That number is a key. It opens the carrier's federal safety record, its insurance filings, its roadside inspection history, and its past crashes. We build carrier profile pages from exactly this data. With a DOT number, your lawyer can tell you within days how much coverage is likely behind the truck and whether this carrier has been cited for the same problem before. Without it, identifying the right company can take weeks, and weeks is how long it takes for evidence to disappear.

3. Capture the rest of it while you are there

If you can move around safely, photograph more than you think you need:

The full scene from several angles, including where each vehicle ended up. Damage to both vehicles, close and wide. Any placards on the trailer, especially the diamond-shaped hazardous materials signs. The license plates. Spilled cargo and where it landed. Skid marks. The intersection or mile marker. Weather and road conditions. The driver's license and insurance card. Names and phone numbers of witnesses, because the police report often lists only one or two and people leave quickly.

Photograph anything that looks like a camera. Businesses along the road, traffic poles, the truck's own windshield-mounted dashcam. Private security footage is typically overwritten in a week or two, and knowing a camera existed is what lets a lawyer send a preservation demand before it is gone.

4. Be careful what you say, to everyone

You are rattled, possibly in shock, and your instinct is to be polite and reasonable. That instinct costs people money.

Do not apologize or say the crash was your fault, even casually, even if you think it partly was. Fault in California is a legal determination that depends on things you cannot assess from the roadside, and "I'm so sorry, I didn't see him" will be quoted back to you.

Do not say you are fine or uninjured. Adrenaline masks injuries for hours. Soft tissue damage and concussions commonly announce themselves the next morning. Say that you are not sure and that you are going to get checked out.

Do not guess at speeds, distances, or how long the light had been green. If you do not know, say you do not know. A wrong guess made in good faith becomes an inconsistency later.

Do not post about it. Not the photos, not the frustration, not the gratitude that it was not worse. Defense lawyers read social media as a matter of routine, and a picture of you at a barbecue three weeks later will be offered as proof your back is fine.

5. Expect a call, and do not give a recorded statement

The carrier's insurer may reach you within a day or two. The adjuster will be friendly and professional and will ask to record a brief statement "just to get your side." You are not required to give one, and you should not give one before you have talked to a lawyer and know the extent of your own injuries.

You may also be offered money quickly. A fast check for a few thousand dollars looks like relief when you are not working. Signing the release that comes with it ends your claim permanently, including for the surgery you do not yet know you need.

Your obligation is to report the crash to your own insurance company. That is a different conversation, and you should be truthful in it.

6. See a doctor today, not next week

Go to an emergency room or urgent care the same day if you can, even if you feel functional. Two reasons. The medical one is that internal injuries and head injuries are not always obvious to the person who has them. The legal one is that a gap between the crash and your first medical visit is the easiest argument the other side has, and they will use it to claim you were hurt doing something else.

Then keep going. Follow the treatment plan, and if you stop, have a reason in writing.

Delivery trucks and vans are their own situation

If what hit you was a delivery van rather than a semi, the question of who to call gets more complicated, not less.

Large delivery networks often do not own the vans or employ the drivers. The van may belong to a small contracting company operating under a national brand, with its own insurance policy and its own employment relationship with the driver. The brand on the side of the vehicle may not be the company that is legally responsible, and it may not be the only one.

Practically, this means photograph everything identifying: the brand, the van number stenciled on the body, the plate, the driver's badge or uniform, any paperwork they hand you. Untangling who employed the driver and whose policy applies is work for a lawyer, but it cannot be done at all if nobody recorded what the van was.

The clock is shorter than you think

You generally have two years from the date of the crash to file a lawsuit in California. That part is not urgent today.

What is urgent is evidence. Carriers are only required to keep driver duty status records for six months. Electronic logging device data, engine control module downloads, dashcam video, and dispatch records can all be gone or overwritten long before your two years are up, and nothing obligates a company to preserve a recording that hurts it unless someone has formally demanded that it do so. A preservation letter needs to go out in days.

And if a government vehicle or a dangerous road condition was involved, the deadline to file a claim against the public entity can be as short as six months. That one surprises people.

Who to call

Call 911 at the scene. Call your own insurer to report it. Then call a lawyer who handles commercial trucking cases specifically, before you give a statement to the carrier's adjuster.

We handle truck accident cases across Los Angeles and Ventura counties, including on the 101 through the West Valley, the 405 through Van Nuys, and the 210 and I-5 interchange in Sylmar. There is no fee unless we recover for you, and the first conversation costs nothing. If the crash happened today, that conversation is worth having today.