Nashville Truck Accidents Involving Alcohol and Drug Use

A collision with a commercial truck can leave you with serious injuries, regardless of whether it is a delivery truck or a tanker truck. When alcohol and drugs are brought into the mix, the collision’s destructive potential elevates. Let us say, for example, that you are approaching an intersection. The driver of the delivery truck behind you took medicine an hour earlier to treat a cold. Unfortunately, she took medicine that can cause mild to severe impairment. As a result, she cannot react in time to stop her truck from rear-ending the back of your vehicle. You sustain injuries such as whiplash and head trauma due to the collision.

After the motor vehicle crash, your whiplash and head trauma caused you to incur medical bills and forced you to take off work for several days. Like most people, you may not be able to cover afford types of losses, so you will likely want to seek compensatory damages to compensate you for those accident-related expenses. To successfully recover damages, you will have to establish negligence by proving that the truck driver’s failure to use reasonable care while driving resulted in your injuries. An experienced trucking accident attorney in the Nashville area can inform you of all of the damages to which you may be entitled under Tennessee law.

If a jury found the delivery truck driver to be negligent in her operation of the truck, you may also be able to hold the truck driver’s employer liable under vicarious liability, but in order to do that, you must be able to prove that the trucker’s negligent action occurred during the course and scope of employment. If the trucker was hired despite the employer knowing from a background check that she had a history of abusing drugs while operating motor vehicles, the employer may be held liable for negligent hiring. There are numerous theories of liability that may be relevant to your case – something else that a lawyer can illuminate for you when developing your case.