Santa Fe Truck Accident Attorney

Located in north-central New Mexico, just an hour northeast of Albuquerque, lies Santa Fe. It’s a popular stopping spot for truckers traveling east-west and also a prime place for tractor-trailer drivers to stop in on their way to or when returning from more northern states.

Our city’s convenient location means that it sees its fair share of trucks carrying loads to local stores, warehouses, and customers’ homes and places of business, as well as ones passing through enroute to more distant places.

When tractor-trailers, box trucks, and others share the road with passenger cars, motorcyclists, pedestrians, and others, dangers arise. Each Santa Fe truck accident lawyer in our office knows this all too well, as we regularly help clients file claims against the parties who injured them.

We want to help you seek justice when a catastrophic accident has left you with serious injuries. From pain and suffering and missed work to disabling impairments that will forever change the trajectory of your life.

We also support surviving family members who unexpectedly lost their loved ones in this type of accident.

Our New Mexico legal system allows you to recover compensation for your injuries by filing a civil claim. So, if you or a close relative suffered unexpected harm or lost their life, reach out to our firm to meet with an attorney for a free consultation to discuss what happened and your respective rights.

Common Types of Trucking Accidents

The term “trucks” refers to a wide range of vehicle types.

A smaller tow or box truck can fit into this category, so too can much larger ones like 18-wheelers.

These vehicles can also have open-air or closed trailers and carry livestock, liquids, flammable substances (like gas), passenger cars, pre-fabricated homes, heavy machinery, and standard consumer goods.

Given the different sizes of trucks and the items they carry, these differences may dictate whether they have similar or different crashes to what’s typical for other automobiles. For example, big rigs may become involved in some of the same crashes that passenger cars or sports utility vehicles do, including:

• Rear-end wrecks
• Sideswipe accidents
• Rollover crashes (or overturn collisions)
• T-bone or intersection accidents
• Head-on collisions (also known as wrong-way wrecks)

However, some crashes are unique to trucks, such as:

• Blind spot crashes
• Override accidents
• Wide-turn collisions
• Jackknife accidents
• Cargo spill wrecks
• Underride accidents

Any crash can certainly be serious given the circumstances. If you’ve had the misfortune of being hurt or losing a loved one in a truck-involved crash, reach out to our law firm, Barrera Law Group LLC. Meeting with an attorney to discuss the legal merits of your case doesn’t cost you a thing.

Santa Fe Roadways That See the Most Tractor-Trailer Crashes

An analysis of news stories and other data listing the locations of truck-involved collisions over the past few years shows that the following roadways have seen the most accidents:

• US-285: This north-south highway, once dubbed the “death highway,” runs through Santa Fe. It sees a lot of traffic, especially among tractor-trailers, as they travel to other large New Mexico cities, including Roswell and Carlsbad, and into other southwestern states.
• I-25: This is New Mexico’s longest road at 462 miles in length. Also considered to be our state’s busiest road, this is the closest major interstate to Santa Fe.
• US-550: This U.S. route is a major connector between Santa Fe, NM and Durango, CO, and sees so much traffic that it was widened to four lanes in recent years, along with having its speed limit raised to 70 to facilitate quicker travel between these two areas. Over a decade ago, this roadway was given the name “killing zone” due to the extremely high number of accidents that occurred here on this route.

While the interstates and U.S. routes above are where some of the most serious truck-involved crashes have occurred, they can happen on state highways and local surface streets in urban, suburban, and rural areas as well.

Common Causes of Truck Accidents in New Mexico

As attorneys who regularly help trucking crash victims, and must determine which factors caused their crashes, we find that the following situations are most often responsible:

• Fatigue: State and federal regulations limit how long truckers can spend on the road; however, traffic, construction zones, inclement weather, or an impatient supervisor can put pressure on them. This can force them to stay on the road far longer than the law allows or is safe,  resulting in them falling asleep at the wheel and causing a crash.
• Speeding: In addition to rushing to meet deadlines after some of the setbacks described above, many truckers get paid per mile instead of hourly, which often motivates them to speed to their destination. We’ve all heard the saying, “Speed kills.” Well, it can affect a trucker’s ability to come to a full stop, leading them to strike vehicles in their path and lose control of their truck.
• Mechanical issues: Failures to perform regular maintenance, ineffective repair jobs, and use of defective aftermarket auto parts can all cause a truck to not be mechanically sound enough to share the road. Also, a tractor-trailer operator’s failure to perform required pre-trip inspections may mean that they don’t catch worn brake pads, tires about to blow out, or other factors that may affect its roadworthiness, leading to collisions.
• Distractions: Handheld cell phone use is illegal in New Mexico for fully licensed drivers; however, that doesn’t stop many truckers from driving while using them. This may distract them from what’s happening on the road. Additionally, conversations with in-cabin companions, on their CB radios, eating, self-grooming, and focusing on other stimuli can result in a crash.
• Intoxication: It can easily get lonely being out on the road for long periods of time, leading tractor-trailer operators to begin drinking to numb their emotions. Developing a dependence on alcohol isn’t the only concern affecting truckers, though. Both illicit and prescription drug abuse are traps that truck drivers can fall into. Addictions to substances like these increase the chances that an impaired trucker might end up on the road, endangering other motorists’ lives.

While the above list is certainly not exhaustive, it does showcase the common causes of tractor-trailer collisions that we identify when investigating why they occurred.

Proving Liability When Wrecks Occur

New Mexico is an at-fault state, which is a good thing in that it allows you to file an insurance claim or lawsuit if a person or business contributes to causing a crash that injures you. Our state laws, however, prohibit you from recovering compensation if you contributed to causing the crash yourself. All of this matters when making liability determinations.

Trucking injury attorneys and insurers will typically review volumes of evidence, such as the following, to decide where liability lies:

• Police reports
• Photographs
• Vehicle damage
• Medical records
• Witness statements
• Videos

You must establish negligence, in that the trucker or other responsible party owed you a duty of care, and breached it. You also need to demonstrate that you suffered harm and have this evidence analyzed to support your claim. If these can be done, our legal team is likely to deem you to have a solid case worth filing to recover monetary damages.

Contact our law firm for a complimentary case review to assess the strength of your claim.

Potential Defendants in Accident Claims in New Mexico

Trucking accident cases are a bit different from other automobile ones. While you can certainly pursue the actual operator of the truck, you also have many other options, including:

• Trucking companies
• Aftermarket auto parts manufacturers
• Cargo loaders
• Truck manufacturers

Another aspect affecting truck wreck cases is mandatory insurance requirements and the fact that multiple parties may share in the liability for a crash. This means that you might be able to tap into several different policies to recover a financial award for your losses.

How Santa Fe Attorneys Help Truck Accident Victims

As someone who’s hurt in a crash or suddenly had a family member or loved one senselessly taken from you, you might feel inclined to take on those responsible yourself. You may feel that you’ll get better results by having them speak directly with you to learn how significantly the crash impacted your life instead of them hearing it from others, like a lawyer.

While we understand why you may feel that way, having a legal representative assist you is absolutely in your best interest. An attorney can be of enormous help in the following ways:

• Assessing a trucker or other potentially liable party’s actions to see if they violated existing regulations or laws and thus contributed to the crash
• Advising you of your rights based on when liability lies
• Helping you compile medical records and bills, lost wage statements, and any other information needed to document your losses
• Negotiate with insurance adjusters representing the defendants in an effort to settle your case out of court
• Prepare your case for trial and zealously advocate in court when securing a fair settlement during pre-litigation isn’t possible

Our law firm has a long, successful track record of representing victims hurt in preventable crashes and wants to support you, too.

Reach out to us using our contact form to schedule a free consultation with a Santa Fe truck accident lawyer.