A collision with a commercial truck is not a bigger version of a car accident. It is a fundamentally different kind of case, governed by a separate body of federal law, involving different defendants, different insurance structures, different evidence, and different defense strategies. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (49 CFR Parts 350-399) impose dozens of specific obligations on commercial motor carriers and their drivers that do not apply to passenger vehicles, and violations of those regulations create negligence-per-se theories that do not exist in standard auto cases. The insurance coverage available in trucking cases is structured differently (primary policies, MCS-90 endorsements, excess layers, and self-insured retentions), and the amounts are dramatically higher than passenger auto policies. The defendants are different: a trucking case can involve not just the driver, but the motor carrier, the broker, the shipper, the lessor, the maintenance contractor, and in some cases the driver’s medical examiner, each with its own coverage and its own liability exposure.
The lawyers who handle these cases on the defense side know all of this. The major trucking defense firms litigate these cases full-time, know the federal regulatory framework inside and out, have established relationships with industry experts, and defend aggressively from the first day. A plaintiff’s firm that treats a trucking case as a bigger auto case, that fails to preserve the evidence that disappears within days, that sues only the driver and the carrier without investigating the broker and the shipper, that doesn’t understand the hours-of-service regulations or the ELD data or the post-collision testing requirements, is bringing a pocket knife to a fight where the other side brought a legal team that does this every day.
The Law Offices of C. W. Wickersham, Jr., P.A. handles trucking and commercial vehicle collision cases throughout Florida. The consultation is free. There is no fee unless we recover compensation for you, and the firm advances all costs of investigation, evidence preservation, accident reconstruction, expert witnesses, and litigation. You pay nothing out of pocket, at any stage, unless and until the case produces a recovery.
Federal regulatory framework. Commercial motor carriers and their drivers are regulated under the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSR), administered by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). These regulations govern virtually every aspect of commercial trucking operations, including hours of service (the maximum number of hours a driver may drive and be on duty before mandatory rest), electronic logging device (ELD) requirements (which replaced paper logbooks and create an electronic record of the driver’s duty status), driver qualification standards (medical certification, commercial driver’s license requirements, driving record review, road testing), drug and alcohol testing (pre-employment, random, post-collision, and reasonable-suspicion testing under 49 CFR Part 382), vehicle maintenance and inspection requirements (systematic inspection, repair, and maintenance programs under 49 CFR Part 396), cargo securement standards, sleep apnea screening, cell phone restrictions, and dozens of other operational requirements. A violation of any applicable FMCSR provision is evidence of negligence, and in many cases constitutes negligence per se, meaning the violation itself establishes the breach-of-duty element of the negligence claim.
The carrier itself is subject to its own set of regulations regarding driver qualification files, hiring practices, ongoing supervision, vehicle maintenance, hours-of-service compliance monitoring, and post-collision testing administration. A carrier that failed to verify a driver’s commercial driving record, failed to enforce hours-of-service compliance, or failed to maintain its vehicles is itself liable under direct negligence theories that supplement the driver’s liability.
Multiple potential defendants. A trucking collision case rarely has only one defendant. Depending on the facts, potential defendants can include the driver, the motor carrier, the broker who arranged the load, the shipper, the consignee, the lessor of the tractor or trailer, the maintenance contractor responsible for the vehicle, the manufacturer of defective components, and in some cases the driver’s medical examiner. Each potential defendant typically has its own insurance coverage, and identifying every party with potential liability is critical to maximizing available recovery. Volume firms often sue the driver and the carrier and stop. The cases that produce the highest recoveries are the ones where every responsible party has been identified and brought into the litigation.
Evidence that disappears quickly. Federal regulations require motor carriers to preserve certain records, but the preservation periods are short and the evidence is in the defendant’s possession. Dashcam systems record on loops that overwrite within days. Event data recorder (“black box”) data can be downloaded and preserved, but only if someone demands it before the truck goes back into service or the data is overwritten. ELD data and telematics records are hosted by third-party service providers with their own retention and deletion schedules. Driver fatigue and wakefulness monitoring data follows the same pattern. Post-collision drug and alcohol testing must be performed within specific time windows under 49 CFR § 382.303, and if the carrier delays or skips the testing, that evidence is gone forever. Pre-trip inspection reports are typically destroyed within months. Maintenance records, training records, dispatcher communications, cell phone records, GPS route data, and prior-incident records are all potentially relevant and all potentially lost if not preserved within days of the collision.
This is not a hypothetical risk. It is the normal course of business. Carriers do not preserve evidence out of the goodness of their hearts. They preserve it when a lawyer makes them preserve it, and not a moment before. A spoliation letter (a formal preservation demand) should go out to the motor carrier, the truck owner, the trailer owner, the telematics provider, and every other party with possession of relevant data within days of the crash. The lawyers who handle trucking cases competently know this. The lawyers who treat a trucking case as a bigger auto case often do not.
On March 24, 2023, Florida’s tort reform legislation fundamentally changed the math on every personal injury case in the state, including trucking cases. Before that date, Florida was a pure comparative negligence state: even if a jury found the plaintiff was 90% at fault, the plaintiff still recovered 10% of their damages. Under that old regime, almost every case had some value regardless of comparative fault, and the settlement-mill playbook of “demand letter, negotiate, settle quick” produced at least some recovery on almost everything. The defense bar knew the mill wouldn’t try the case, but it didn’t matter as much because the comparative fault fight only affected the size of the recovery, not whether recovery existed at all.
That system is gone. Under the modified comparative negligence standard now in effect under section 768.81 of the Florida Statutes, a plaintiff found more than 50% at fault recovers nothing. Not a reduced amount. Nothing. The comparative fault fight is no longer a negotiation over percentages. It is now a binary question: is the plaintiff over 50% at fault, or under? If over, the case is worth zero. If under, the plaintiff recovers, reduced by their percentage of fault.
This changes everything about how trucking cases are litigated and settled in Florida.
The standard trucking defense playbook has always included aggressively attributing fault to the injured driver. The driver was following too closely. The driver was in the truck’s blind spot. The driver was speeding. The driver was distracted. Before the 2023 reform, that was a damages-reduction strategy: even if the defense succeeded, the plaintiff still recovered something. Now it is a case-elimination strategy. If the defense can credibly pin 51% on the plaintiff, the case is not worth less; it is worth zero.
Trucking defense firms understand this perfectly, and they are pricing their settlement positions accordingly. A defense firm negotiating with a settlement mill knows the mill will not try the case. That means the mill has no credible response when the defense pushes the comparative fault allocation. The mill cannot say “we’ll let a jury decide the fault question” because everyone in the room knows they will not. The defense prices accordingly: either the plaintiff accepts a lowball offer that prices in the risk of a 51% allocation, or the defense walks away entirely and dares the plaintiff’s lawyer to go to trial. The mill folds, takes the lowball, and moves on to the next file.
A trial-ready firm flips that dynamic entirely. When the defense knows the plaintiff’s lawyer will actually put the comparative fault question to a jury, and will fight the allocation aggressively with accident reconstruction experts, federal regulatory violation evidence, and FMCSR compliance failures that shift fault decisively onto the carrier and the driver, the 51% threshold becomes a risk for the defense, not just for the plaintiff. A carrier whose driver was clearly violating hours-of-service regulations, whose ELD data shows the driver was past the maximum driving hours, whose post-collision drug test was conveniently delayed, does not want a jury deciding comparative fault. The regulatory violations make the carrier’s fault obvious and overwhelming. The defense’s settlement leverage evaporates when the other side is genuinely prepared to try the case.
This is not a theoretical distinction. It is the difference between a lowball settlement that prices in the 51% risk and a full-value resolution that reflects the actual strength of the case. In post-reform Florida, the firm you hire for a trucking case is not just a preference. It is the single biggest factor in whether the case produces a meaningful recovery or gets settled for a fraction of its value because the defense knew your lawyer would never take it to trial.
The consultation is free. The call costs nothing. If you have been injured in a trucking collision, call the firm and let us evaluate the case. If we take the case, you pay no fee unless we win. If we do not think the case is viable, we will tell you directly, and that conversation costs you nothing either.
Tractor-Trailer and Semi-Truck Collisions. Collisions involving 18-wheelers, semi-trucks, big rigs, and tractor-trailer combinations. These cases typically involve the deepest available coverage and the most complex federal regulatory analysis.
Commercial Delivery Vehicles. Collisions involving delivery trucks operated by Amazon, FedEx, UPS, USPS contractors, food delivery services, and other commercial delivery operations. These cases often involve scope-of-employment analysis, particularly for independent contractor drivers who may or may not be covered under the parent company’s policies.
Logging and Agricultural Trucks. Florida logging trucks and other agricultural-exempt commercial vehicles operate under a different regulatory framework than tractor-trailers, with some federal regulations not applying or applying differently. Logging truck cases in Florida have produced significant verdicts and settlements, but the regulatory analysis is distinct and requires familiarity with the agricultural exemptions and the Florida-specific issues that arise on rural Florida roads at night.
Dump Trucks, Cement Mixers, and Construction Vehicles. Commercial construction vehicles involved in highway collisions, work zone incidents, and operations adjacent to public roads. These cases often involve the contractor, the project owner, and potentially the public entity supervising the work, in addition to the driver and the vehicle owner.
Garbage and Sanitation Trucks. Commercial sanitation operations, both private and municipal. Municipal sanitation cases involve government entity defendants with sovereign immunity issues and specific presuit notice requirements; private sanitation operations are governed under the standard FMCSR framework.
Fleet Vehicles and Box Trucks. Commercial fleet vehicles operated by businesses for their own commercial purposes, including service vehicles, supply trucks, and box trucks. Coverage and liability analysis depends on the specific use and the structure of the operating business.
Wrongful Death from Commercial Vehicle Collisions. Fatal collisions involving commercial vehicles, governed by both Florida’s Wrongful Death Act (Chapter 768) and the federal regulatory framework. These cases involve the wrongful death statutory framework for damages and survivors plus the trucking-specific liability and evidence issues. For more information about wrongful death matters generally, see our Personal Injury and Wrongful Death page.
Florida’s highway system carries some of the heaviest commercial truck traffic in the United States, and the volume continues to grow. I-95 through Jacksonville is one of the highest-volume commercial trucking corridors on the East Coast, carrying freight between the Port of Jacksonville (JAXPORT), one of the busiest container ports in the country, and destinations throughout the Southeast. I-10 runs east-west from Jacksonville through the Florida Panhandle and is a primary freight route connecting Florida to the Gulf Coast states and points west. I-75 carries enormous commercial traffic through Central and South Florida, connecting the state’s interior to the Atlanta corridor and beyond. I-4 between Tampa and Orlando is one of the most dangerous stretches of interstate in the country for commercial vehicle collisions, with heavy freight traffic, congestion, and construction creating conditions that produce serious and fatal crashes regularly.
Outside the interstates, Florida’s rural highways present their own hazards. North Florida and the Panhandle see significant logging truck traffic, often at night, on two-lane roads with minimal lighting and no shoulders. Agricultural trucks operate throughout Central and South Florida on roads shared with passenger vehicles, often at lower speeds that create dangerous speed differentials. Construction vehicles operate in and around active work zones throughout the state’s highway system, where lane shifts, reduced speeds, and narrow lanes create collision risks that are compounded by the size and weight of the commercial vehicles.
The firm is based in Jacksonville and handles trucking and commercial vehicle collision cases throughout Florida, including cases arising on I-95, I-10, I-75, I-4, and Florida’s rural highways, as well as cases involving JAXPORT container traffic and local commercial vehicle operations in Duval County and throughout Northeast Florida. The firm is admitted in all three United States District Courts in Florida (Northern, Middle, and Southern Districts) and the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, and handles trucking cases in both state and federal court depending on which forum best serves the client’s interests.
The damages recoverable in a trucking collision case depend on the severity of the injuries and the specific facts of the case. In general, a person injured in a trucking collision may recover compensation for medical expenses (both past medical bills and the estimated cost of future medical treatment, including surgeries, rehabilitation, and ongoing care), lost wages and lost earning capacity (both the income already lost due to the injury and the reduction in future earning ability if the injury is permanent or long-term), pain and suffering, permanent impairment or disfigurement, loss of enjoyment of life, and out-of-pocket expenses directly caused by the collision.
In wrongful death cases, Florida’s Wrongful Death Act (Chapter 768) provides specific categories of damages for the surviving spouse, children, parents, and other statutory survivors, including lost support and services, lost companionship, mental pain and suffering of the survivors, and medical and funeral expenses.
Because commercial trucks carry substantially higher insurance coverage than passenger vehicles, and because trucking cases often involve multiple defendants each with their own coverage, the total available compensation in a trucking case is often significantly higher than in a standard auto case involving similar injuries. Identifying every responsible party and every available source of coverage is a critical part of maximizing the recovery.
Immediate action on Day 1. When this firm takes a trucking case, we do not open a file and wait. We take immediate, aggressive action on the first day to protect the client’s rights and lock down the evidence that will make or break the case. Before the end of business on the day we are retained, the insurance carriers have been notified, and formal preservation demands have gone out to every party with possession of relevant evidence.
Those preservation demands go to the motor carrier, the truck owner (which is often a separate entity from the carrier in lease arrangements), the trailer owner (frequently a different company entirely), the freight broker who arranged the load, the shipper, any leasing company involved, the maintenance and repair contractor responsible for the vehicle, the ELD and telematics service provider (companies like Samsara, Motive, or Lytx that host the electronic data), the dashcam and in-cab camera system provider, and the driver’s fatigue and wakefulness monitoring service provider. Each party’s insurance carrier receives separate notice.
The evidence we demand preserved includes: dashcam footage (both forward-facing road cameras and driver-facing in-cab cameras), event data recorder data (the truck’s “black box,” which captures speed, braking force, throttle position, steering input, and other mechanical data in the seconds before and during the collision), electronic logging device records, GPS and telematics data (full route history, speed logs, hard-braking events, geofence alerts), driver fatigue and wakefulness monitoring data, dispatch communications and load assignment records, driver qualification files, hours-of-service records, post-collision drug and alcohol testing results, vehicle maintenance and inspection records, pre-trip and post-trip inspection reports, driver training records, the driver’s and the carrier’s prior accident and incident history, cargo loading records and weight tickets, the driver’s cell phone records, weigh station bypass records, and fuel receipts and trip logs.
Every single piece of that evidence is in the defendant’s possession, not in yours. Every single piece of it can be overwritten, deleted, or “lost” if no one demands its preservation. Dashcam systems typically operate on recording loops that overwrite old footage within days. ELD data can be modified or purged. Telematics providers archive and delete data on their own retention schedules. Post-collision drug and alcohol testing must be performed within specific time windows under 49 CFR § 382.303, and if the carrier delays the testing or fails to perform it at all, that evidence is gone permanently. The carrier has no legal obligation to preserve most of this evidence unless someone demands it.
That is why Day 1 matters. The difference between a firm that sends preservation demands on the day it is retained and a firm that gets around to it weeks later is often the difference between a case built on hard evidence and a case built on whatever survived the carrier’s routine data destruction. The evidence that proves the driver was past the maximum driving hours, that the carrier knew the driver had a history of violations, that the vehicle hadn’t been properly maintained, that the driver was on a cell phone at the moment of impact, is the evidence that wins the case. It is also the evidence that disappears first.
Multi-defendant investigation. We identify every party with potential liability, including the driver, the carrier, the broker, the shipper, the lessor, and any maintenance or service contractor whose work may have contributed to the collision. Each potential defendant has its own coverage, and recovery is often a function of identifying every available source of compensation rather than just suing the driver.
Federal regulatory case development. We develop the case under the federal regulatory framework where applicable, including FMCSR violations, FMCSA carrier safety ratings, prior incident history, hours-of-service compliance, ELD data analysis, post-collision testing protocols, and driver qualification standards. These regulatory theories supplement common-law negligence and often strengthen both liability and damages.
Expert development. Serious trucking cases require accident reconstruction experts, trucking industry experts, commercial driving experts, mechanical engineers (for vehicle-failure cases), and medical experts. We engage the appropriate experts at the appropriate stages of the case, advancing the costs out of firm resources.
Candor about collectability and case viability. Not every trucking case produces meaningful recovery. Some involve carriers that are undercapitalized or judgment-proof, some involve coverage disputes that limit available compensation, and some involve liability or damages issues that make the case uneconomical to litigate. We evaluate each case at intake for both liability and collectability, and we are direct with clients about which cases are workable and which are not. When the case is viable, we pursue it aggressively. When it is not, we tell the client clearly, rather than building hope that will not pay off months into the representation. That honest evaluation costs you nothing.
Trial preparation. Trucking cases are some of the most aggressively defended cases in civil litigation. The major trucking defense firms know the federal regulatory framework, have established relationships with industry experts, and litigate trucking cases full-time. The plaintiff’s firm that tries a trucking case has to match that level of preparation or be outmatched at trial. We prepare trucking cases for trial from the outset, and we try the cases that need to be tried. In post-reform Florida, the willingness and ability to try the case is no longer just a selling point. It is the difference between meaningful recovery and a lowball settlement driven by the defense’s knowledge that the plaintiff’s lawyer will never see the inside of a courtroom.
Seek medical attention first. After that, preserve everything: photographs of the vehicles and the scene, the police report, contact information for witnesses, your own medical records and bills. Do not give a recorded statement to the trucking company's insurer without speaking to an attorney first; the insurer's adjuster is trained to minimize the claim, not to protect your interests. Contact an attorney as soon as possible, because the evidence preservation window in trucking cases is short and critical evidence can be lost within days. The consultation is free.
The statute of limitations for personal injury claims in Florida is two years from the date of the collision under section 95.11(3)(a) of the Florida Statutes. Wrongful death claims have their own two-year limitation period. Federal preservation requirements for trucking evidence are much shorter than these statutory deadlines, however, and the practical reality is that the case should be evaluated and counsel retained within days or weeks of the collision to preserve evidence that will otherwise be lost.
Trucking cases involve federal regulations that do not apply to passenger vehicles, multiple potential defendants beyond the driver, significantly higher insurance coverage, specialized evidence (ELD data, driver qualification files, post-collision testing) that requires specific preservation demands, and a specialized defense bar that litigates trucking cases full-time. Treating a trucking case as a bigger auto case means missing the regulatory theories, the additional defendants, and the evidence that makes the case worth substantially more.
Nothing up front, and nothing at any stage unless we win. The consultation is free. If we take the case, it is handled on a contingency fee basis: you pay no attorney's fee unless the firm recovers compensation for you. The firm advances all costs of investigation, evidence preservation, accident reconstruction, expert witnesses, and litigation. If the case does not produce a recovery, you owe nothing. The entire financial risk is on the firm, not on you.
Do not give a recorded statement. Do not sign anything. Do not accept any payment or settlement offer. The insurer's adjuster is not working for you; they are working for the company that hit you, and their job is to minimize what the company pays. Anything you say in a recorded statement can and will be used against you later in the case, including to argue that you were more than 50% at fault (which under Florida's current law would eliminate your recovery entirely). Call us first. The consultation is free, and it protects you from making a mistake that cannot be undone.
Florida now uses a modified comparative negligence standard under section 768.81 of the Florida Statutes, enacted on March 24, 2023. Under this standard, a plaintiff found more than 50% at fault recovers nothing. This is a dramatic change from Florida's prior law, which allowed recovery even at 90% or 99% fault. Trucking companies and their insurers routinely try to assign fault to the injured driver, even in cases where the trucking company's regulatory violations were the primary cause of the collision. In post-reform Florida, the comparative fault fight is the most important issue in many trucking cases, and it is the issue where having a trial-ready firm matters most. A settlement mill that the defense knows will never go to trial has no leverage to fight a 51% allocation. A firm that will put the fault question to a jury does. This is the single biggest reason why the choice of lawyer in a Florida trucking case matters more now than it ever has.
Out-of-state carriers operating in Florida are subject to Florida's long-arm jurisdiction under most circumstances. We handle cases involving out-of-state carriers regularly. The federal regulatory framework applies regardless of where the carrier is based, and federal court litigation is often available for cases involving carriers and incidents that meet the requirements for diversity or federal-question jurisdiction.
You can change lawyers. You are not stuck with the firm you hired first, and you do not need your current lawyer's permission to make the switch. If you hired a firm weeks or months ago and no one has sent preservation demands to the carrier, no one has identified the broker or the shipper, no one has demanded the ELD data or the dashcam footage, and no one can tell you what the status of the case is, the case is not being handled the way a trucking case needs to be handled. Every day that passes without evidence preservation increases the risk that critical evidence has already been lost.
The firm accepts trucking cases transferred from other attorneys. When a case transfers in, we treat it the same way we treat a new intake: immediate evidence preservation demands, immediate insurance carrier notification, full investigation from the ground up. The earlier the transfer happens, the better the chance that the evidence the first firm failed to preserve is still recoverable. But even in cases where time has passed, there are often steps that can still be taken to recover evidence, identify additional defendants, and build the case properly. If you are not confident that your current firm is handling your trucking case the way it should be handled, call us. The consultation is free, confidential, and carries no obligation.
The consultation is free. There is no obligation, and no fee for the initial evaluation of your case.
If the firm takes your case, it is handled entirely on contingency. You pay no attorney’s fee unless and until the firm recovers compensation for you. The firm advances all costs, including investigation, evidence preservation, accident reconstruction, expert witnesses, court costs, and litigation expenses. If the case does not produce a recovery, you owe nothing for the work that was done or the costs that were advanced. Standard Florida personal injury contingency rates apply.
Medical treatment. If you have been injured in a trucking collision and are worried about how to pay for medical treatment, you should know two things. First, Florida is a no-fault state, and your own automobile insurance policy includes Personal Injury Protection (PIP) coverage that pays up to $10,000 in initial medical expenses regardless of who was at fault for the collision. You are entitled to this coverage under your own policy, and you should use it. Second, the firm coordinates medical treatment with providers who will treat on a letter of protection, which means the provider agrees to defer payment until the case resolves. This allows you to get the medical treatment you need now, without paying out of pocket, while the case is pending. You do not have to choose between medical care and hiring a lawyer; the system is designed so that you can have both.
Given the urgency of evidence preservation in trucking cases, do not wait to call. Critical evidence, including ELD data, dashcam footage, and post-collision testing results, can be lost within days of the collision. A short initial conversation can identify the immediate steps needed to preserve evidence, even before any decision has been made about retaining counsel. That conversation costs you nothing.
