Helping Log Truck Accident Victims
Our experienced attorneys work to help make our roads safer
In the Jacksonville area, logging trucks are an everyday - and often, every night - sight on rural roads. These trucks serve a vital purpose in the logging industry by transporting timber to mills. However, the companies that operate these trucks often put profits ahead of safety, and too often, it's motorists who pay the price.
If you've been hurt in a truck accident involving a log truck, you need a compassionate attorney to help you recover fair compensation. You need someone who understands the complex laws and regulations that apply to these accidents. You need a law firm with a proven track record of results.
You need The Law Firm of Pajcic & Pajcic.
Jacksonville's trusted log truck accident lawyers
When an accident happens involving a log truck, Jacksonville residents know to call our law firm. That's for good reason: We've recovered multiple million-dollar verdicts and settlements for people injured or killed in these accidents, including a $13 million verdict for a woman who sustained a traumatic brain injury and a $9 million total recovery for a logger who was killed when another log truck sped through a construction zone.
What makes log trucks so dangerous? They have the same issues as any other big commercial truck - blind spots, wide turns, sometimes exhausted or distracted drivers - but there are also safety concerns unique to log trucks that put motorists at even greater risk.
- Night driving. Log trucks often get on the road in the middle of the night in order to be first in line when the mill opens in the morning. It's a strategy on the part of the logging companies to save money, but it comes with a serious risk of an accident due to the low-light conditions.
- Poor lighting. Compounding the risk of night driving is the fact that log trucks have much less lighting than tractor-trailers. That's because the Florida Legislature continues to give special exemptions to agriculture and log trucks.
- Back roads. Log trucks routinely take back roads in order to bypass weigh stations and avoid fines for being overweight. In our $13 million recovery mentioned above, the log truck was stopped by a DOT officer and then made a U-turn, causing the accident.
- Loose cargo. There are few things more frightening for a motorist than the idea of a massive log breaking through a windshield. Unfortunately, in log truck accidents, that nightmare often becomes a reality, leading to serious or fatal injuries.
Because the strict federal regulations that apply to tractor-trailers do not apply to log and agricultural trucks, many log truck drivers are less experienced or otherwise less capable of maneuvering these heavy, dangerous vehicles. That, too, puts motorists at serious risk.