If you’ve been injured in an accident involving a C.R. England 18-wheeler, you need to understand the challenges you are facing.
The most important piece of advice I can give you is to take this very seriously. Understand that C.R. England’s insurance company is going to fight your claim tooth and nail. If you’ve ever filed an accident injury claim (not just a property damage claim) in the past, you likely already understand this. There is a process for bringing a successful truck accident injury claim, and one misstep could damage or otherwise drastically reduce the potential value of your case.
While you may want to handle this claim yourself, you should strongly consider discussing your options with an attorney. Accident attorneys exist for a reason, and no one knows that better than someone who has tried to negotiate a settlement themselves. Many people do not even consider hiring an attorney because they do not want to risk their own money. Luckily, our car accident lawyers work on contingency. This means we’ll never ask you for a single dime out of pocket to hire us!
A History of Serious Accidents
A few years back in 2012, a C.R. England truck caused an accident which resulted in a passenger car getting stuck under the trailer, causing a serious shutdown on Houston’s Interstate 45. In 2014, a C.R. England trainee was killed and 9 others were injured when their passenger van veered off the freeway, crashing into a tree and rolling into a drainage ditch. It’s alleged that passengers in this training van weren’t wearing seat-belts and that it was not uncommon for training vans to contain broken and non-functioning seat-belts.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s SAFER report shows that, as of 06/10/2016, CR England had been involved in over 660 accidents over the last two years alone. 185 of those accidents caused at least one injury, and 21 resulted in at least one wrongful death.
FMCSA Regulations
The FMCSA is responsible for making sure that federal trucking laws are followed by all commercial transportation companies. It has been alleged by some that C.R. England doesn’t take these rules seriously, and has even retained drivers with questionable histories.
One lawsuit filed against CR England stated that a man with a checkered past was allowed to work for the company, operating one of its many 18-wheelers. On his first two days of work, he was twice ticketed for exceeding the federal “hours of service” rules. On top of that, when he applied for the job, he informed the trucking company of his criminal history (he had went to prison for killing 3 men), and that he had used to be a heavy cocaine user. While driving for C.R. England in 2005 (and pressured by dispatchers to make a delivery in time) the driver ran a red light and crashed into an 85-year-old woman driving a Ford Escort station wagon, leaving her seriously injured.
According to the woman’s attorney, “The most sinister part is not even really the driver, it’s the company that brings in these kinds of drivers and puts these folks on the road.”
Why Truck Accidents are Different
Truck accidents are treated differently due to the many exceptional variables that you won’t get in other types of car accidents. For example, truck accidents cause more substantial damage to passenger vehicles due to their sheer size and weight. In addition, these large transportation companies (and their insurers) have teams of lawyers whose sole purpose is to fight these claims. As an individual, you absolutely have no chance of winning or getting the compensation you deserve without an attorney on your side.
If you’ve been injured in an accident involving a C.R England truck, it’s in your best interests to contact a truck accident attorney as soon as possible for a free consultation. If you’d like to discuss the options available to you for free, call us at 1-800-ATTORNEY today.