Baton Rouge Auto Accidents Lawyers

Automobile and Truck Accidents

Operating a vehicle on a roadway remains one of life's most necessary and most dangerous activities.

• Each year more than 6 million car accidents on U.S. roads claim 40,000 lives and leave more than 3 million people injured, 2 million of whom are left with permanent disabilities.
• Every 12 minutes, one person dies, and every 14 seconds there is an injury.

Not all accidents occur because of driver fault – many accidents result from a poorly designed or a poorly maintained roadway or intersection, or from a defectively manufactured tire or poorly designed or manufactured vehicle, such as the much publicized SUV rollover accidents.  In those cases, the liable party is the governmental body, parish or county or state, responsible for the roadway or the manufacturer of the tire or vehicle.

A truck accident involving a big truck and a smaller vehicle often has tragic consequences. A big truck can weigh more than 80,000 pounds and measure up to 75 feet in length.

• According to the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT), there are 500,000 truck accidents each year..

• In truck accidents, an alarming 98% of the time, the passengers or driver in the other vehicle are killed as opposed to people in the truck.

Experience Matters:  Accident victims and the families of those who have died in traffic-related accidents face a challenging situation that is complicated by complex liability and insurance laws that require proof in court in addition to the proof required by Personal Injury Damages Law.

Particularly for a death case, where the main witness is no longer able to testify, and for many cases where there are often disputed versions of how the accident happened, even from eyewitnesses, a thorough investigation is needed at the earliest time.  Accident reconstruction experts, usually with engineering training, are hired to determine the speeds of vehicles and actions of drivers - from skid marks, damage to vehicles, collision debris, vehicle “black boxes”, and witnesses’ statements.  . 

One of our attorneys is also an engineer who reviews all cases to determine if accident construction is necessary and who evaluates all accident reconstruction work done.

Insurance companies have a team of investigators, adjustors, agents and legal help to protect them.  As the accident victim, you need your own team to protect you. We immediately hire a certified legal investigator to get recorded statements from all witnesses and to produce our own photographic record of the accident scene and vehicles. The damaged vehicles are located and secured, and if necessary, they are purchased and stored as evidence. Aerial photography of the accident site is commissioned when helpful to reconstruct the accident.

As a business, insurance companies are primarily concerned with limiting their payout. Your needs are secondary. An insurance company is under no obligation to tell a victim how much liability insurance is available, and will never tell you that other insurance may also be available, such as through additional liability or excess insurance policies.  Nor will an insurance representative remind you of the applicability of any uninsured or underinsured motorist insurance coverage which you may have or which may be included in the insurance on the vehicle in which you are a passenger – and when you have agreed to settle your case, the insurance company will include provisions (fine print) in the release you will be asked to sign that will destroy your rights to all such additional sources of compensation.