People assume a crash with an 18-wheeler is just a car accident with more damage. Legally, it's a different animal — governed by federal regulations, defended by corporate teams that mobilize within hours, and built on evidence that can lawfully be destroyed long before your filing deadline arrives.
- Federal rules only require carriers to keep driver logs six months.
- Texas gives you two years to sue — an 18-month gap where evidence can vanish.
- Trucking companies often have investigators at the scene the same day.
- Multiple parties may be liable: driver, carrier, broker, shipper, maintenance contractor.
- Commercial policies are far larger than the Texas 30/60/25 minimum.
The six-month evidence problem
This is the single most important thing to understand, and almost no general advice mentions it.
Federal regulations require motor carriers to retain drivers' records of duty status — the electronic logging device (ELD) data showing hours driven, rest breaks, and location — and their supporting documents for six months. Six months is the floor, not a target. Many carriers purge on exactly that schedule as a matter of routine.
Texas gives you two years to file suit. Do the math: there's roughly an eighteen-month window in which the evidence that proves a driver was over hours, falsifying logs, or pushed by dispatch can legally disappear before you ever file.
Once a carrier is on notice that a claim is reasonably anticipated, continuing to destroy relevant records stops being routine retention and becomes spoliation — which carries its own consequences in court. But that protection only exists if someone puts them on notice. That's a preservation letter, and it needs to go out fast.
Their team is already working
Major carriers maintain rapid-response protocols. It is common for a trucking company's investigators, and sometimes defense counsel, to be at a serious crash scene the same day — photographing, measuring, interviewing witnesses, and downloading data from the truck's onboard systems before the vehicles are moved.
By the time an injured person is out of the hospital, the other side may have a complete evidentiary record and you may have nothing but a crash report. Balancing that is the first job in a truck case.
Evidence that exists only in trucking cases
- ELD / hours-of-service data — proves whether the driver was legally allowed to be driving
- The engine control module ("black box") — speed, braking, throttle in the seconds before impact
- Driver qualification file — licensing, medical certification, prior violations, training
- Drug and alcohol testing records — federal rules require post-accident testing in defined circumstances
- Maintenance and inspection records — brake, tire, and repair history
- Dispatch and communication records — whether the driver was pressured to run late loads
- Bills of lading, fuel receipts, toll records — independent proof of where the truck actually was and when
Every one of those has a retention clock. Every one can support a case that a car-accident-only approach would never uncover.
More than one defendant
In a typical car wreck there's a driver and an insurer. In a truck case, responsibility is often shared:
- The driver — for the driving itself
- The motor carrier — for hiring, training, supervision, and the schedules it sets
- The vehicle owner — frequently a different entity from the carrier
- A maintenance contractor — where brake or tire failure contributed
- The shipper or loader — where improper loading or securement caused the crash
- A freight broker — in some circumstances involving selection of an unsafe carrier
Identifying every responsible party matters enormously, because each may bring separate insurance coverage.
Why coverage changes everything
Texas requires ordinary drivers to carry only 30/60/25. Interstate motor carriers operate under federal financial-responsibility requirements that are dramatically higher, and large carriers often layer excess policies well beyond the minimum.
For a catastrophic injury, that difference decides whether full compensation is even possible. Our $925,000 commercial auto collision result reflects that reality — the same injuries against a minimum-limits personal policy would have hit a ceiling long before.
It's also why we don't shy away from corporate defendants. We've gone up against national companies, and the pattern is consistent: bigger defendants bring bigger coverage and harder defense, and both facts have to be planned for from day one.
What to do if it just happened
- Get medical care immediately and keep going. Truck-crash forces cause injuries that present late.
- Photograph the truck — company name, USDOT number on the door, trailer markings, license plates.
- Don't give the carrier's insurer a recorded statement. Their adjusters are experienced and specialized.
- Get a lawyer involved quickly — the preservation letter is genuinely time-sensitive.
That USDOT number is worth more than people realize. It identifies the carrier and unlocks its federal safety record, inspection history, and prior violations.
The bottom line
Truck cases reward early, aggressive investigation more than almost any other kind of injury claim, because the most valuable evidence has the shortest shelf life. If an 18-wheeler was involved, the clock that matters isn't two years — it's six months.
Common Questions
This article provides general information about Texas law and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Laws change and every case turns on its own facts — speak with a licensed attorney about your specific situation. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.