What to Do After a Truck Accident in Florida: A Trial Lawyer's Checklist

Within hours of a serious truck crash, the motor carrier's rapid-response team is on the scene — investigators, adjusters, sometimes defense counsel. Their job is to shape the record before you have even left the hospital. Yours is simpler: protect your health and preserve your leverage. Here is the checklist we give our own families.

1. Get medical care — and keep every record

Adrenaline hides injuries. Traumatic brain injuries in particular can surface days later. See a doctor the same day, describe every symptom, and keep every discharge paper. Day-one records anchor the value of your claim.

2. Preserve the evidence that disappears

• Hours-of-service logs and the truck's ECM (“black box”) data — carriers can lawfully overwrite some of it within weeks
• Dash-cam and traffic-camera footage
• Inspection, maintenance, and drug-testing records
• The carrier's FMCSA safety history

Our first move in every trucking case is a spoliation letter that legally freezes this evidence. It goes out within 24 hours of engagement.

“The carrier's team is working the case the same day. If your lawyer is not, you are already behind.”

3. Say nothing to their insurer

You are required to report the crash to your insurer — not to talk to theirs. Recorded statements exist to reduce your payout. Refer every call to your attorney.

4. Understand who can be liable

Trucking liability is rarely one policy. The driver, the motor carrier, the freight broker, the shipper, and maintenance contractors may each carry coverage — our $25.725 million truck accident wrongful death settlement came from pursuing every one of them.