Getting hit by a truck leaves you dealing with injuries while a company with lawyers and investigators is already working the crash. Zavodnick & Lasky Personal Injury Lawyers represent people hurt by commercial vehicles in Center City and across Philadelphia.
The electronic logs from the truck that hit you can legally be gone in six months. Federal rules require a motor carrier to keep records of duty status and supporting documents for that long, and carriers are not in the business of keeping them longer. That clock starts the day of the crash, while you are still in treatment and long before anyone files anything.
If a box truck or tractor-trailer hit you downtown, call (215) 875-7030 and we will get preservation demands out.
Why is a truck claim different from a car claim?
Because a different body of law applies and a different set of defendants is involved. Interstate motor carriers operate under federal safety regulations covering driver hours, inspection, maintenance and qualification, and violations of those rules become evidence in your case in a way that a traffic citation never is.
The insurance is different too. Under 49 CFR Part 387, a for-hire carrier hauling ordinary freight in interstate commerce must carry at least $750,000 in coverage, several times what a private driver carries, which is why the carrier’s response is faster and harder. Investigators and defense counsel are often working the crash the same week, sometimes the same day.
Downtown streets that generate these crashes
Center City runs on deliveries, and the geography is unforgiving. Trucks come off the Vine Street Expressway ramps into a grid of one-way streets they were never designed for. Chestnut, Walnut, Spruce and Pine carry box trucks between double-parked cars, bike lanes and bus stops.
The recurring patterns are predictable: a right-hook turn across a bike lane, a backing maneuver into a loading zone with no spotter, a pedestrian struck in a crosswalk by a driver whose mirrors never covered that space, a lane change on Broad Street into a car sitting in a blind spot. Construction detours downtown push heavy vehicles onto blocks they do not normally use, which is its own category of case.
Call (215) 875-7030 if a commercial vehicle hit you anywhere between the rivers.
Who can be held responsible besides the driver?
Often several parties, and identifying them early is what builds the case. The motor carrier can be liable for its own conduct in hiring, training, supervising or scheduling the driver. The company that loaded the trailer can be liable when a shifting or overweight load caused the crash.
| Party | What makes them responsible |
| The driver | The conduct that caused the collision |
| The motor carrier | Hiring, training, supervision, scheduling, maintenance |
| The shipper or loading company | Improper loading, weight, securement |
| A maintenance contractor | Brake, tire or inspection failures |
| A freight broker | Selecting an unsafe carrier in some circumstances |
Each of those parties may carry separate insurance, which matters when injuries are serious enough that one policy will not cover them.
Where does a Center City truck case get filed?
In the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas, whose Trial Division sits at City Hall, for crashes that happen in the city. Smaller claims can go to Municipal Court. Venue for a case against a trucking company can also depend on where the carrier does business, which occasionally opens options worth weighing.
Philadelphia juries hear a steady diet of commercial vehicle cases, and local counsel who try them know which judges move these dockets and how quickly.
What a Center City truck case needs from you early
Photographs of the vehicles, the street and the signage, if anyone took them. The crash report number. The names on the doors of the tractor and the trailer, which are frequently two different companies. Any card the driver handed over at the scene.
Then treatment, documented from the start and kept consistent. A crash where the pain is written down the same week is a different claim than one where the first record appears in month two, and the carrier’s defense counsel reads those records before anyone talks about money.
What you do not need to do is give a statement to the carrier’s investigator. That call usually comes early, sounds routine, and is recorded.
What Center City clients ask after a truck crash
The truck driver said his company would take care of it, should I wait?
No. The company taking care of it usually means an adjuster recording a statement and a release arriving before the medical picture is clear. Get the treatment documented and have a lawyer talk to the carrier.
A delivery van hit me, does that count as a truck case?
It can. Commercial vehicles of many sizes are covered by federal or state safety rules, and the employer of the driver is a potential defendant regardless of the vehicle’s size.
How fast do I need to act to save the evidence?
Within weeks. Logs, engine control module data, dashcam footage and dispatch records all have retention limits, and a preservation letter is what stops the routine deletion cycle.
Get the preservation letter out this week
Truck cases are won with records that exist in month one and not in month eight, which is why preservation comes first in the truck accident claims process. The carrier already knows that, which is why its team moved first.
Zavodnick & Lasky Personal Injury Lawyers take Center City truck cases on a contingency basis, so the fee comes out of what is recovered. Call (215) 875-7030, or read more on our Philadelphia truck accident page and our Center City car accident page. Past outcomes the firm has handled are listed on our case results page.
