Deborah Lockridge
Preservation of evidence after a truck crash, no matter how minor, is a part of defending against litigation.
In the chaotic aftermath of a truck crash, one misstep — like failing to save camera footage — can cost your company dearly in court. Evidence preservation is essential to protecting your drivers, your company’s reputation, and the bottom line.
Jennifer Akre, managing partner at legal defense firm Tyson & Mendes, remembers one case where failing to preserve the load led to a courtroom nightmare for her trucking client.
Six months after the crash, the plaintiff’s team claimed the truck was overweight at the time of the crash, affecting following distance. But since the crash, the load had absorbed months’ worth of humidity.
That moisture inflated the truck’s weight, leading to a fierce legal debate over admissibility and liability.
Failure to preserve evidence, whether physical evidence like the vehicle, photos or video, or data, can be a major factor in a lawsuit.
“You do not want to start deleting information, because that will result in spoliation,” says Adam Lang, who is director of customer advisory services at Netradyne and a former award-winning fleet safety manager.
Spoliation of evidence means the destruction or significant alteration of evidence, or the failure to preserve evidence, for another’s use in pending or future litigation. It can have serious repercussions down the road.
Plaintiff Attorneys Are Weaponizing Preservation Demands in Truck Crash Cases
Doug Marcello, a longtime trucking defense attorney with the Saxton & Stump law firm, says plaintiff attorneys “routinely weaponize” evidence preservation demands in truck accident cases, creating costly burdens for carriers while setting up “spoliation” claims as litigation leverage.
Even minor accidents, Marcello says, often “trigger sweeping preservation letters demanding everything from electronic control module downloads to driver phones — not because the data is needed, but to create legal tripwires”
Courts can punish spoliation (failure to preserve evidence) by instructing juries to assume missing evidence was unfavorable, and in extreme cases, automatically finding fault with the trucking company, Marcello says.
Increasingly, he says, plaintiff attorneys are bypassing warning letters entirely, obtaining preliminary injunctions without notice. That puts carriers under immediate court orders before they can respond.
“This isn’t about justice — it’s litigation gamesmanship,” Marcello says.
He also suggests pushing back strategically when attorneys are demanding excessive evidence:
- Set finite inspection periods (15 days)
- Demand compensation for truck downtime
- Make them justify the burden.
The Truck Driver’s Role at the Crash Scene
“When we start talking about data preservation, a lot of that is done on the admin side versus the driver,” says Lang, who led award-winning safety efforts at Halvor Lines for 10 years.
But the truck driver, being the one involved in a crash, has a large role in preserving evidence.
“Photos definitely help, and you want the driver to do that,” Lang says. “Now a lot of drivers are just taking walk-around videos to see what’s going on.”
Make sure you get those photographs and video from the driver and that they are preserved.
Lang says he asks drivers to push the driver notification button on the in-cab camera to bookmark an area where you could start pulling video footage if an alert was not triggered, which can happen in a low-inertia crash.
“I would want them to bookmark it, but I would not want them to disconnect the camera or do anything with the equipment,” Lang says. “It all needs to be kept as is, so that photos can be taken, police can do their investigation and all of those things can take place.”
Why ECM Data Could Make or Break Your Case
Marcello says data from the electronic control module is key evidence fleets need to preserve after an accident — even when it seems like a minor crash.
The ECM, or engine control module, logs critical data such as:
- The speed of the truck when the brakes are applied.
- Whether or not the clutch is depressed.
- How fast the engine is revving.
- Whether your driver is on cruise control.
“That data is streaming and will continue to go through, just like a Netflix movie,” Marcello explains. “But when there is a triggering event, such as a sudden deceleration, most companies’ engines will lock down that data for so many seconds.” (Exactly how many depends on the manufacturer.)
That data is also recorded on a last-stop basis, he says.
“When your truck stops post-accident or stops at the end of the day, there’s data in there for so many seconds for some of the manufacturers, not all,” Marcello says.
“The key thing is, when you start the truck up and move it down the road post-accident, guess what? It’s written over, like a wedding video with a Penn State football game.”
How a Trucking Company Fought Back a Nuclear Verdict
While hard braking or other sudden impact triggering events preserve data for that timeframe regardless of subsequent actions, Marcello says, minor accidents — slow stops, sideswipes, minor impacts — may not trigger recording systems, leaving you without documentation when facing aggressive legal pursuit.
“In today’s ‘jackpot justice’ environment, this data represents the difference between proving minimal impact and facing inflated claims from billboard lawyers targeting minor accidents,” Marcello says.
Dash Cams and Defense: Protecting Powerful Evidence
Some of the most valuable evidence after a crash is the video from an in-cab camera or dash cam.
Nick Saeger, assistant vice president for transportation products and pricing at Sentry Insurance, calls them “the silver bullet or the golden goose in exonerations.”
“Video probably keeps claims out of courts more often than it actually ends up in front of a jury,” he says.
“If you have [camera footage], it can make or break your case… If you don’t have it, you will face questions throughout the litigation about why you don’t have it,” Akre says.
Plaintiff’s attorneys will work to paint a picture of the trucking fleet as too cheap to invest in cameras (and other safety technology), that it puts profit over people, and so on.
Netradyne’s Lang believes the clarity provided by in-cab cameras is a must, a view he developed when working at Halvor Lines.
“You need to have a camera in the vehicle, period, to help with exoneration or help to show the truth on the driver’s side,” Lang says.
“There’s a lot of plaintiffs’ attorneys out there that take the approach that it is negligent to not have a camera in the vehicle, and they will attack that if they go to court,” he says. “So you need that camera.”
Preserving Camera Footage After a Truck Crash
But if you don’t make sure the video from the crash is preserved, it’s not going to do you much good.
“Cameras get erased all the time,” Akre says.
She frequently sees cases where an accident was minor, so trucking companies didn’t see a need to preserve the video from the camera. And typically, dash cams only keep video for a certain amount of time before overwriting it.
5 Steps to Avoid Common Mistakes When Implementing In-Cab Cameras
If a lawsuit does later come out of that minor accident, if you no longer have that video, it’s your word against theirs.
Make sure you have policies and procedures in place to prevent the destruction or erasure of a camera from a truck involved in a crash.
“The data, the camera footage, get that downloaded immediately,” Lang says.
Depending on what camera system you’re using, the amount of time it retains that footage varies. If you haven’t done something to save or download that data after a crash before that time period’s up, you could find yourself without it if a lawyer later comes knocking on your door.
In addition to the camera footage, Lang says, make sure you’re keeping any supporting information about coaching the driver had in the past, alerts that were triggered, and what you did to address those alerts.
“Every little bit helps to ensure that you’re preserving your data post-crash.”
Document the Recovery Scene to Help Prevent Predatory Towing Bills
Another thing drivers can document at a crash scene that could save a company money down the line: The number of recovery vehicles at the scene and personnel.
That’s the recommendation from Nick Saeger, assistant vice president for transportation products and pricing at Sentry Insurance.
“When you think about towing companies and some of the exorbitant towing bills you see nowadays, it’s because they brought six people to the scene, five of whom are just standing around doing nothing,” he says.
“In some cases, phantom charges may be added to the bill.”
If drivers can document what actually happened at the crash scene, it can help fleets in conversations with towing companies about potential overcharging.
Deborah Lockridge
Award-winning fleet safety executive Jeremy Stickling, chief administrative officer for Illinois-based Nussbaum Transportation, says Nussbaum drivers are asked to get the other party’s information and get photos.
“When that doesn’t happen, you’re basically subject to the local sheriff or state trooper district getting their police report done, and now you’re waiting three weeks,” he says.
While some camera and telematics systems provide automatic notification to a trucking company when they detect a possible crash, Stickling says that’s more of a back-up than a primary method of notification.
In-cab video helps, says Stickling, “but there’s context outside of what the video gives us.”
What Drivers Can Document After a Truck Crash
Nick Saeger, assistant vice president for transportation products and pricing at Sentry Insurance, acknowledges that a crash can be a traumatizing experience for a driver and this might be a lot to ask of them.
“But if they have the wherewithal and they have the training, getting photos and video evidence of vehicles involved, your truck, the other vehicles that might be involved, and the scene itself, are great.
“Document the people involved,” Saeger says. “If you’re a driver and you can get contact information from the other drivers, that’s great. That gets it to the insurance company more quickly. If there happen to be witnesses in the area and you can get their contact information, again, that’ll speed the process for our claims adjusters.”
Driver Monitoring Tech Won’t Prevent Crashes Without Fleet Oversight [Commentary]
Motor carriers should train their commercial truck drivers ahead of time about what to do after a crash, even a minor one. You also can make sure they have kits with anything needed with them in the cab to help them through the process. Some insurance companies can provide these.
And when drivers call in after a crash, a company rep should be able to coach them through those after-crash procedures.
Adam Lang, director of customer advisory services at Netradyne, spent nearly 10 years at Wisconsin-based Halvor Lines and was the recipient of HDT’s Safety & Compliance Award for 2020. When he was working for the fleet, he says, tablets were issued to drivers, which had an app that helped walk truck drivers through providing the basic details of a crash.
“Here are the photos, here is the location, how many vehicles are involved, and any photos of them,” he says. “Just the base information for an initial first notice of loss so that we could immediately turn that over to the insurance company and work in conjunction with them.”
Decide Early Who Will Coordinate Your Crash Response
In addition to truck drivers needing training in post-crash procedures, heavy-duty trucking fleets need to have processes, procedures, and people in place across the company to respond after a crash.
“First of all, you want a quarterback,” Lang says. “Someone has to have the ball.”
Top 5 Truck Driver Behaviors Linked to Future Crashes
That quarterback may differ depending on the severity of the crash and the day/time it happens. But whoever it is, that person is responsible for communication among dispatch and operations, the shop, road service, and the executive team.
Keep those communications immediately after a crash very fact-based, Lang says. “Don’t give out details that you don’t have. That’s not the time for it.”
Rather, he says, this stage of the response is more about the quarterback notifying other parties what’s happened, what information is currently available, and putting them on notice that they may be needed to jump in to assist with crash response.
Boots on the Ground After a Truck Crash
Your post-crash communications should include those responsible for insurance claims, whether it’s internal or external. They may want to get a claims adjuster or an insurance adjuster on site, or even an attorney if the crash is severe enough.
Werner Appeal Victory Could Curb ‘Reptile Theory’ Tactics in Trucking Lawsuits
For instance, Nussbaum works with its insurance carrier, which has partnered with an attorney. It just takes a couple of phone calls to mobilize a team to a crash site.
Having such a team on the scene can help ensure police report accuracy, Stickling says, and help identify if there’s anything on the scene “that could tell more of the story,” beyond what a driver may be able to gather.
“You can’t send out all the boots on the ground for $1,200 of property damage,” says Stickling. “But if we know we’ve got a major one where there’s serious injury obvious to the eye, or God forbid, a fatality, we are partnered with our insurance company and have a plan in place. And we’re going to try to mobilize and get people on site.”
Even Minor Crashes Can Lead to Major Liability
It’s important to develop a set post-crash process and procedure that drivers are trained on to follow in every crash, whether it looks like a major crash or not, and whether you think your driver was at fault or not.
Even crashes that don’t seem major at first could come back to bite you later, for instance, if a victim has a soft-tissue injury that wasn’t apparent at the time of the accident.
Focus on the Road: Combating Distracted Driving
In addition, Lang says fleets shouldn’t depend on the driver’s emotional or mental state when he or she calls after a crash to determine the seriousness of the incident.
“I’ve had drivers calling in where it was a minimal accident, where they were beside themselves and they sounded like something tragic had happened,” he says. “And on the flip side of things, I’ve had large incidents occur, but the sound of the driver is like, it’s just another day.”
Consistency Protects Your Trucking Company Later
From a defense attorney’s perspective, “I think you have to treat every collision as a potential lawsuit from the trucking company standpoint,” says Jennifer Akre, managing partner at Tyson & Mendes, a law firm known for defending against potential nuclear verdicts.
That doesn’t mean you have panic or to hire a lawyer every time, she says. What’s important is to create an accident protocol for your company, a list of actions to take every single time there’s a crash, no matter how minor.
3 Things Trucking Fleets Should Know About Runaway Jury Verdicts
Sentry’s Saeger says insured carriers often ask why they need to inform their insurance company in a crash that was not their driver’s fault.
“Maybe your driver isn’t at fault,” he says. “But there may be multiple passengers in the other vehicle who also weren’t at fault — and juries tend to sympathize with those situations.
“Reporting claims immediately will really, really help you set you up for success in the future and set your insurance company up for success.”
Do You Need a Post-Crash Statement from Your Truck Driver?
Akre cautions against rushing to get an official written statement from your driver immediately after the crash.
She has seen more than one case where there was no way the accident could have happened the way the driver remembered it.
“Trauma does things to people,” Akre says.
“If you’re a truck driver and you’re in a major accident, and you believe that by fault of your own or just by the weight of your truck, you’ve injured or killed somebody, your memory of what happened 30 seconds before that traumatic event isn’t going to be incredibly accurate. And it can lead to issues later at trial.”
She says in many cases she has defended, drivers’ post-crash written statements include things that are physically impossible, or it’s discovered later that it goes against the evidence.
Akre says there’s no legal requirement for a trucking company to take a written statement of their driver.
“In a very severe accident that you know is going to be in litigation, I’d argue that you really don’t need a statement at all,” she says. “Let your lawyers handle it.”
Yes, she says, there is sometimes value in getting an official statement from the driver after a crash, for instance if the driver is about to be terminated and there are no other documents or videos to show the facts.
“But even in those cases, I would have somebody who is an experienced investigator, experienced attorney, somebody who works with these cases all the time, talk to the driver for a while first,” Akre says.
Lang says when he was at Halvor, he took a cautious approach in getting information from a driver after a crash.
“There might be times when the driver writes down some information regarding the crash, just bare bones, ‘This is what I recall,’ without opinion and without details that do not matter in this situation that might be misconstrued,” he says.
Lang’s process was to talk one one-on-one with a driver soon after the crash, ask them questions, and document the conversation.
However, he says, “I have the experience. I’ve been deposed multiple times. So I’ve been trained to recognize some things [to avoid]. I don’t want to ask questions that will be used against us and taken out of context.”
The police may take a statement, and of course, you’re not going to tell your driver not to talk to the police. But the more different statements are out there, the higher the chance of them not agreeing with each other. And a jury is going to wonder, in which one was the driver lying?
How Fleet Transparency After a Crash Can Reduce Legal Risk
If it’s obvious that there is fault on the part of the motor carrier, you should consider reaching out to the other party.
“This shouldn’t be a game; it should be genuine if your heart’s in the right place,” Stickling says. “If somebody’s hurt, you have somebody in touch with them right away. If something’s our fault, we want to make somebody whole.
“If we can get through to the other party and let them hear our voice early on,” he says, it can help to get ahead of what they hear from plaintiff attorneys who will try to convince them that the trucking company doesn’t care.
“If the other party feels like they’re going to be taken care of, maybe they’re a little less likely to go get that plaintiff attorney.”
As Lang says, “I feel that at the end of the day, honesty is going to prevail. And if something bad happened on the part of the motor carrier, it’s going to come out. So, it’s best to rip the band-aid off in a situation where the motor carrier may be at fault. Address that immediately and try to move for a fast and efficient settlement.
“Do what’s right, take care of the wrong you did, but get control of it so you can pay what’s fair.”
Whether it’s a fender bender or a fatality, the moments after a crash are critical. Equip your drivers with the tools, training, and support to respond safely and smartly. Treat every incident as a potential legal case — but lead with empathy, act with integrity, and stay ahead of the claim.
Deborah Lockridge
After a truck crash, how your company gathers information, what you gather, and how you preserve it are all critical.
For a professional truck driver, the moments after a truck crash, even relatively minor ones, can be disorienting. Knowing exactly what to do next can make a world of difference down the road when it comes to safety, insurance claims, and potential litigation.
How truck drivers and heavy-duty trucking fleets handle those first conversations, photos, and reports after a truck crash can tip the scales in courtrooms months or years later.
As explored in the first part of this series, it’s important to train truck drivers what to do after a truck crash. That includes showing empathy to others involved and gathering information at the scene. That information is important, for insurance claims, possible driver refresher training, and to defend your company if there’s litigation resulting from the crash.
How you gather information, what you gather, and how you preserve it are all critical.
The Truck Driver’s Role After a Crash
Award-winning fleet safety executive Jeremy Stickling, chief administrative officer for Illinois-based Nussbaum Transportation, says Nussbaum drivers are asked to get the other party’s information and get photos.
“When that doesn’t happen, you’re basically subject to the local sheriff or state trooper district getting their police report done, and now you’re waiting three weeks,” he says.
While some camera and telematics systems provide automatic notification to a trucking company when they detect a possible crash, Stickling says that’s more of a back-up than a primary method of notification.
In-cab video helps, says Stickling, “but there’s context outside of what the video gives us.”
What Drivers Can Document After a Truck Crash
Nick Saeger, assistant vice president for transportation products and pricing at Sentry Insurance, acknowledges that a crash can be a traumatizing experience for a driver and this might be a lot to ask of them.
“But if they have the wherewithal and they have the training, getting photos and video evidence of vehicles involved, your truck, the other vehicles that might be involved, and the scene itself, are great.
“Document the people involved,” Saeger says. “If you’re a driver and you can get contact information from the other drivers, that’s great. That gets it to the insurance company more quickly. If there happen to be witnesses in the area and you can get their contact information, again, that’ll speed the process for our claims adjusters.”
Driver Monitoring Tech Won’t Prevent Crashes Without Fleet Oversight [Commentary]
Motor carriers should train their commercial truck drivers ahead of time about what to do after a crash, even a minor one. You also can make sure they have kits with anything needed with them in the cab to help them through the process. Some insurance companies can provide these.
And when drivers call in after a crash, a company rep should be able to coach them through those after-crash procedures.
Adam Lang, director of customer advisory services at Netradyne, spent nearly 10 years at Wisconsin-based Halvor Lines and was the recipient of HDT’s Safety & Compliance Award for 2020. When he was working for the fleet, he says, tablets were issued to drivers, which had an app that helped walk truck drivers through providing the basic details of a crash.
“Here are the photos, here is the location, how many vehicles are involved, and any photos of them,” he says. “Just the base information for an initial first notice of loss so that we could immediately turn that over to the insurance company and work in conjunction with them.”
Decide Early Who Will Coordinate Your Crash Response
In addition to truck drivers needing training in post-crash procedures, heavy-duty trucking fleets need to have processes, procedures, and people in place across the company to respond after a crash.
“First of all, you want a quarterback,” Lang says. “Someone has to have the ball.”
Top 5 Truck Driver Behaviors Linked to Future Crashes
That quarterback may differ depending on the severity of the crash and the day/time it happens. But whoever it is, that person is responsible for communication among dispatch and operations, the shop, road service, and the executive team.
Keep those communications immediately after a crash very fact-based, Lang says. “Don’t give out details that you don’t have. That’s not the time for it.”
Rather, he says, this stage of the response is more about the quarterback notifying other parties what’s happened, what information is currently available, and putting them on notice that they may be needed to jump in to assist with crash response.
Boots on the Ground After a Truck Crash
Your post-crash communications should include those responsible for insurance claims, whether it’s internal or external. They may want to get a claims adjuster or an insurance adjuster on site, or even an attorney if the crash is severe enough.
Werner Appeal Victory Could Curb ‘Reptile Theory’ Tactics in Trucking Lawsuits
For instance, Nussbaum works with its insurance carrier, which has partnered with an attorney. It just takes a couple of phone calls to mobilize a team to a crash site.
Having such a team on the scene can help ensure police report accuracy, Stickling says, and help identify if there’s anything on the scene “that could tell more of the story,” beyond what a driver may be able to gather.
“You can’t send out all the boots on the ground for $1,200 of property damage,” says Stickling. “But if we know we’ve got a major one where there’s serious injury obvious to the eye, or God forbid, a fatality, we are partnered with our insurance company and have a plan in place. And we’re going to try to mobilize and get people on site.”
Even Minor Crashes Can Lead to Major Liability
It’s important to develop a set post-crash process and procedure that drivers are trained on to follow in every crash, whether it looks like a major crash or not, and whether you think your driver was at fault or not.
Even crashes that don’t seem major at first could come back to bite you later, for instance, if a victim has a soft-tissue injury that wasn’t apparent at the time of the accident.
Focus on the Road: Combating Distracted Driving
In addition, Lang says fleets shouldn’t depend on the driver’s emotional or mental state when he or she calls after a crash to determine the seriousness of the incident.
“I’ve had drivers calling in where it was a minimal accident, where they were beside themselves and they sounded like something tragic had happened,” he says. “And on the flip side of things, I’ve had large incidents occur, but the sound of the driver is like, it’s just another day.”
Consistency Protects Your Trucking Company Later
From a defense attorney’s perspective, “I think you have to treat every collision as a potential lawsuit from the trucking company standpoint,” says Jennifer Akre, managing partner at Tyson & Mendes, a law firm known for defending against potential nuclear verdicts.
That doesn’t mean you have panic or to hire a lawyer every time, she says. What’s important is to create an accident protocol for your company, a list of actions to take every single time there’s a crash, no matter how minor.
3 Things Trucking Fleets Should Know About Runaway Jury Verdicts
Sentry’s Saeger says insured carriers often ask why they need to inform their insurance company in a crash that was not their driver’s fault.
“Maybe your driver isn’t at fault,” he says. “But there may be multiple passengers in the other vehicle who also weren’t at fault — and juries tend to sympathize with those situations.
“Reporting claims immediately will really, really help you set you up for success in the future and set your insurance company up for success.”
Do You Need a Post-Crash Statement from Your Truck Driver?
Akre cautions against rushing to get an official written statement from your driver immediately after the crash.
She has seen more than one case where there was no way the accident could have happened the way the driver remembered it.
“Trauma does things to people,” Akre says.
“If you’re a truck driver and you’re in a major accident, and you believe that by fault of your own or just by the weight of your truck, you’ve injured or killed somebody, your memory of what happened 30 seconds before that traumatic event isn’t going to be incredibly accurate. And it can lead to issues later at trial.”
She says in many cases she has defended, drivers’ post-crash written statements include things that are physically impossible, or it’s discovered later that it goes against the evidence.
Akre says there’s no legal requirement for a trucking company to take a written statement of their driver.
“In a very severe accident that you know is going to be in litigation, I’d argue that you really don’t need a statement at all,” she says. “Let your lawyers handle it.”
Yes, she says, there is sometimes value in getting an official statement from the driver after a crash, for instance if the driver is about to be terminated and there are no other documents or videos to show the facts.
“But even in those cases, I would have somebody who is an experienced investigator, experienced attorney, somebody who works with these cases all the time, talk to the driver for a while first,” Akre says.
Lang says when he was at Halvor, he took a cautious approach in getting information from a driver after a crash.
“There might be times when the driver writes down some information regarding the crash, just bare bones, ‘This is what I recall,’ without opinion and without details that do not matter in this situation that might be misconstrued,” he says.
Lang’s process was to talk one one-on-one with a driver soon after the crash, ask them questions, and document the conversation.
However, he says, “I have the experience. I’ve been deposed multiple times. So I’ve been trained to recognize some things [to avoid]. I don’t want to ask questions that will be used against us and taken out of context.”
The police may take a statement, and of course, you’re not going to tell your driver not to talk to the police. But the more different statements are out there, the higher the chance of them not agreeing with each other. And a jury is going to wonder, in which one was the driver lying?
How Fleet Transparency After a Crash Can Reduce Legal Risk
If it’s obvious that there is fault on the part of the motor carrier, you should consider reaching out to the other party.
“This shouldn’t be a game; it should be genuine if your heart’s in the right place,” Stickling says. “If somebody’s hurt, you have somebody in touch with them right away. If something’s our fault, we want to make somebody whole.
“If we can get through to the other party and let them hear our voice early on,” he says, it can help to get ahead of what they hear from plaintiff attorneys who will try to convince them that the trucking company doesn’t care.
“If the other party feels like they’re going to be taken care of, maybe they’re a little less likely to go get that plaintiff attorney.”
As Lang says, “I feel that at the end of the day, honesty is going to prevail. And if something bad happened on the part of the motor carrier, it’s going to come out. So, it’s best to rip the band-aid off in a situation where the motor carrier may be at fault. Address that immediately and try to move for a fast and efficient settlement.
“Do what’s right, take care of the wrong you did, but get control of it so you can pay what’s fair.”
Whether it’s a fender bender or a fatality, the moments after a crash are critical. Equip your drivers with the tools, training, and support to respond safely and smartly. Treat every incident as a potential legal case — but lead with empathy, act with integrity, and stay ahead of the claim.
Deborah Lockridge
What should a truck driver and trucking company do after a crash?
You’ve done everything you can to prevent crashes at your trucking fleet. The latest advanced safety equipment. In-cab cameras. Driver training and coaching. Creating a culture of safety.
But still, accidents will happen. Attorneys will file lawsuits. What happens after a crash can make a big difference in how your company fares in court, as well as affect your insurance.
What policies, procedures, training, and technology can your fleet implement post-crash to improve those outcomes?
Train Drivers Before the Crash Happens
Jennifer Akre, managing partner at Tyson & Mendes, stresses the importance of the first moments after a crash.
“The immediate 10, 15, 20, 30 minutes following a crash are really, really important,” says Akre, who has extensive experience in defending trucking fleets.
These early moments are often the hardest for attorneys, who must rely on secondhand accounts and policies rather than firsthand evidence.
Adam Lang emphasizes the importance of acting quickly and decisively: “One of my favorite words is alacrity,” says Lang, who is director of customer advisory services at Netradyne.
During his nearly 10 years at Wisconsin-based Halvor Lines, the truckload fleet earned numerous safety awards, including Lang being named the winner of HDT’s Safety & Compliance Award for 2020.
Another award-winning fleet safety executive, Jeremy Stickling, chief administrative officer for Illinois-based Nussbaum Transportation, also stresses moving quickly after a crash.
“The sooner we know if there is a severe one where there’s critical injury, that’s where we can mobilize the boots on the ground,” says Stickling, who is the 2025 Truckload Carriers Association Safety Professional of the Year.
“We can let our insurance company know right away. They can get the resources out to the scene and collect all the context while it’s fresh.”
The Business Case for Reporting Truck Crash Claims Early
It’s vital to get the claim reported to your insurance company as soon as possible, says Nick Saeger, assistant vice president for transportation products and pricing at Sentry Insurance.
“When we know that something happened, we can get in touch with everybody that’s been impacted, to the extent that we have the contact information — the trucking company owner, the driver himself, any other impacted third parties,” he says.
“We can let them know how the claims process might proceed and just help them become better acquainted with how we expect it to go.”
Even if you don’t believe your driver is at fault, even if the police officer at the scene says it wasn’t the driver’s fault, Saeger says, your insurance company needs to know as soon as possible.
“Liability and negligence laws vary widely from state to state,” he explains. “So even when a fleet thinks their driver is not at fault, you still need to report those claims.
“In some states, in the worst of scenarios, even if your driver is apportioned just 1% of fault, it’s possible for that accident or that claim to go straight to policy limits if the outcome or if the accident is severe enough. So when we know it’s possible, we can get in front of that and help eliminate those scenarios.”
Allowing the insurance company to get involved from the beginning also can affect a carrier’s ultimate cost of insurance.
“If you have a $25,000 or a $50,000 liability deductible, you are on the hook for that,” Saeger says. “Getting the insurance company involved can help save you actual dollars in those situations.
“Plaintiff attorneys are getting involved more frequently and earlier on in the claims process. The sooner we know, the sooner we can help.”
Truck Driver Crash Response Steps to Protect Your Fleet
A trucking fleet should train its truck drivers on what they should — and shouldn’t — do after a crash.
The first thing a driver should address after a crash is the safety of the scene. For instance, if the collision involved a utility pole on a wet road, you wouldn’t want the driver jumping out to help others only to get electrocuted by a live power line.
“You want to make sure that the area around the driver is safe,” Lang says. “If they’re not safe, they can’t do anything.
“I want that driver putting their flashers on and getting their high-vis triangles out and putting their high-vis equipment on when they get out of the vehicle. Day, night, doesn’t matter. I want it on.”
Drivers should call 911 before they even notify the company.
“Even if somebody at the scene says they’ve called 911, it doesn’t matter,” Lang says. “You want the driver to call 911, inform law enforcement quickly, and then you want that call to come in to the company.”
Once others in the crash have been seen to, 911 called and the driver’s company notified, drivers should take photos and/or video of the scene and gather other information that may be helpful. (More details on this in Part 2.)
Small Gestures Can Have a Big Legal Impact
“I had a driver who taught me something very valuable,” Lang says. “He was involved in a crash, and when he went and talked to the other motorist involved, he brought a bottle of water over to them and said, ‘Are you OK? Here’s some water.’
“The other driver remembered that small act of kindness, and it helped us solve that claim very quickly.”
Traditional thinking has seen trucking companies telling drivers not to get out of the truck, for fear that they might do or say something that could lead to litigation later on. But that’s changing.
“You’ll see some coaching out there that says the driver should never say ‘sorry’ at the scene,” says Stickling.
“I flinch at that a little bit. There’s humans involved, and there should be empathy and care.”
Why Empathy Matters in Trucking Crash Response
Akre has seen from experience what can happen when a driver doesn’t show concern for others at the scene.
“I think that the old advice was, ‘Don’t say anything, don’t talk to anyone, don’t call anyone, buckle down and call your boss immediately and let them handle it,” she says.
“That led to a bunch of cases where I had a plaintiff or multiple plaintiffs that are injured, and I’ve got a truck driver who’s been told to sit in the cab of his truck and do nothing.”
Two years later, she says, the driver ends up being grilled in a deposition by the plaintiff’s attorney, who is saying something like, “So while my client was bleeding in her car, you didn’t even go check on her. While my client was pinned underneath your truck, you didn’t even get out of the cab to go check on her.”
When the driver responds that it’s company policy, the corporate representative must try to explain why that policy exists.
“And the corporate rep can’t really explain it outside of, ‘We’re just trying to cover our butts from a liability perspective. And because my lawyers told me to,’” Akre says.
“If you want to tick off a jury? Don’t take care of the plaintiff. Don’t be a human.”
After a Truck Crash: ‘Be a Human’
In fact, Tyson & Mendes, a pioneer in fighting against “nuclear verdicts,” is unveiling a new litigation and trial strategy called The Apex.
“The first rule of our Apex method is to be a human,” Akre says. “Be a good human. So I think the better advice is to get out of your truck, if it’s safe to do so, and go check on the other people.”
Don’t Let Your Fleet’s Safety Manuals Hurt You in Court
Drivers should not discuss liability, but they should be encouraged to show basic human concern. Lang says.
“It doesn’t have to be a big conversation. It can just be, ‘I’m checking on you. Are you okay?’”
“When people are injured, in that first 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 minutes, it doesn’t matter whose fault it is,” Akre says. “That’s for the lawyers to deal with later. Right then, the only thing that matters is, ‘How are you? Do you need help?’ Just take care of the other person, be a good human first, and the rest will follow.”
At Nussbaum, Stickling says, “What we do is just make sure [drivers are] careful about who they talk to and what they say, because it can be used against you.
“It’s hard for me to see the risk of a driver showing that they actually care.”
Experts Recommend Mitigation Strategies Like Ensuring Safety of Equipment, Smart Insurance Policies, Relationships With Attorneys
Connor D. Wolf
SAN DIEGO — The trucking industry has been facing surging unfavorable verdicts and insurance costs as biases and policies drive up costs beyond economic reality, according to a panel of experts Oct. 28 at American Trucking Associations’ Management Conference & Exhibition.
“A variety of factors including global events, natural disasters, economic conditions, legal trends and rising claim costs are impacting corporate insurance expenses,” said Pamela Blass Bracher, deputy general counsel at ATA. “With costs increasing per mile and new insurance capacity entering the market slowly, motor carriers face ongoing challenges in procuring insurance and managing their risk program.”
Bracher added that claims are remaining open for longer, and plaintiff attorneys are quicker about filing lawsuits, forgoing pre-suit claim demands and settlement talks. She said this has resulted in an increase in average loss severity for both indemnities and expenses, while insurance companies raise premiums, reduce coverage and withdraw from certain markets in response.
“Traditional economic drivers, such as wage inflation, medical cost trends and [consumer price index] growth, no longer explain the pace at which liability claims are escalating,” Bracher said. “To accommodate rising insurance costs, trucking companies have employed strategies, and they’re rethinking their total limits. Legal dynamics, including tort reform and state judicial elections, continue to shape the industry landscape. Raising public awareness of litigation trends has never been more important.”
Bracher pointed out that these insurance policies don’t just reflect carriers’ risk profiles; the emotional and psychological biases of jurors across the country are now factoring into premiums too. She said this underscores the need for the insurance industry to better explain how litigation dynamics impact cost and availability.
“It’s a supply and demand question, just like all of us are dealing with in the trucking space right now,” said Nathan Meisgeier, president and chief legal officer at Werner Enterprises. “In auto liability, frankly, in any corporate insurance market, it starts with a supply and demand question. … As insurers have started to shrink the policies that they’re willing to write, as the number of insurers available to us shrinks, that’s a supply side part of the dynamic.”
A nuclear verdict that went against Werner was overturned by the Texas Supreme Court this June. (Werner Enterprises)
Werner was the defendant in a fatal highway accident that occurred in Texas in 2014. A Werner tractor was struck by a pickup truck whose driver lost control on icy roads and crossed the median. The jury initially awarded $89.7 million in damages to the plaintiffs in 2018. After one unsuccessful appeal, the decision was overturned by the Texas Supreme Court this June. The carrier pointed to the fact that the truck driver stayed in his lane and was below the speed limit.
“But even before the Werner verdict happened in 2018, we had a year where our rates went up significantly, and our loss run was frankly stellar,” Meisgeier said. “There’s part of the analysis that is not controlled. And so, the overall macro is happening to you, and you can’t control that part. What can you control? You can control things like what kind of equipment are you running? You can control things like, what do your policies say? You can control things like, when you’re getting data off of your telematics system, are you doing anything with it, or are you just putting it in a storage container somewhere for a plaintiff lawyer to mine someday?”
Meisgeier also stressed the importance of ingraining safety into company culture. That means making sure every driver knows that nothing is worth the risk of hurting themselves or others and that people and loads aren’t being pushed too hard. At the foundational level, he said it boils down to good training across the company.
“We’re viewed as all one industry, it’s all together, and we’re very different sizes and have very different experiences, but our value of safety and safety toward the motoring public is really important,” said Kristin Glazner, chief administrative officer at Wabash. “The second item being, regardless of the size of the company you are, really knowing your lawyers.”
Glazner added that carriers should retain lawyers that understand their culture and values. She recommended carriers use lawyers to inspect whether any of their operations and procedures increase liability risks. If a carrier has an upcoming case, she said the legal team should learn from their lawyers about the nuances, like what the judge is like, to calibrate a better approach. She also highlighted the importance of getting help from associations and groups like ATA.
“Tort reform is really important,” Glazner said. “That’s not something that can just happen federally. Do we want that to happen federally, absolutely. There are things, particularly in the product liability space, that would be very helpful to have it federally. But most of the tort reform … is very state to state, and how states view negligence. That is an important activity, it’s a journey, that work may never be done completely.”
Mark Schremmer
About two decades ago, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration attempted to study the causes of large truck crashes.
It’s fair to say that the truck crash study was a disappointment.
As Land Line Managing Editor Jami Jones pointed out in a recent analysis, the study didn’t determine who was at fault or really why the crash happened. Instead, it focused on pre-collision events rather than consequences.
Jones recalled one peculiar example in the previous Large Truck Crash Causation Study.
“A truck turns across the path of an oncoming car at an intersection. The critical event is the truck’s turn across the path of the other vehicle. The truck had the turn arrow, observed the oncoming vehicle and assumed that the oncoming vehicle would stop, which proved to be incorrect. (Right-of-way, which is captured separately, does not necessarily determine the critical event, because the collision may still be avoidable.) The critical reason is ‘false assumption of other road user’s actions.’”
So, instead of focusing on the car that ran the red light, the example turned the spotlight on the truck driver for assuming that other vehicles would follow traffic laws. Seriously?
No doubt, we needed a redo.
The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act included a provision that required a “Study of Commercial Motor Vehicle Crash Causation.” This past August, the FMCSA published a notice and request for comments about its plans to conduct another study.
“FMCSA intends to collect data over the course of two years with a target start date of early 2026,” the agency wrote in the notice. “Collection and receipt of data may continue beyond the 2-year study period based on state-specific agreements and the renewal of this information collection request. At the conclusion of the study, a final report and supporting database with aggregate, anonymized results will be published.”
OOIDA comments
On Oct. 27, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association filed formal comments in support of the new study looking at Class 7 and Class 8 trucks.
OOIDA President Todd Spencer wrote that the new study gives the agency an opportunity to drastically improve upon “the failed structures and methodologies” of the initial Large Truck Crash Causation Study.
Spencer added that the study has the potential to help identify key driver, vehicle, motor carrier and environmental factors that may contribute to fatal crashes involving heavy-duty trucks.
“Moving forward, we are hopeful the Crash Causal Factors Program will be completed in a meticulous manner and can guide effective safety improvement policies and programs,” Spencer wrote.
