Truck accident lawyer in Houston for 18-wheeler and big rig crashes

A crash with a loaded 18-wheeler is a different claim from a crash with a sedan, because a motor carrier, its insurer and a set of federal safety rules all come with the truck. As a truck accident lawyer in Houston, LAWBOSS works these claims from the records the trucking company keeps. Two of our Houston attorneys spent years on the insurance side, so we know how a carrier’s insurer prepares to defend one.

You are reading a page written by the Houston office of LAWBOSS – Harris, Nelsen & Uvalle, PLLC. We work out of a suite on Memorial Drive beside Memorial Park, just west of downtown, and we take calls about wrecks with tractor-trailers, box trucks, dump trucks and other commercial vehicles across Harris County and the towns around it.

Why 18-wheeler claims are handled differently

In an ordinary car wreck, one driver and one auto policy usually sit on the other side. In a commercial truck wreck there is often a driver, a motor carrier that put the truck on the road, sometimes a separate owner of the trailer, a company that loaded the cargo and a shop that serviced the brakes. Each may have its own insurer and its own lawyer. The carrier’s insurer usually hears about the crash quickly, and its people can be working on the company’s side of the story before the injured person has left the emergency room.

Federal rules also shape the case. Texas commercial vehicle law follows the federal motor carrier safety rules: Transportation Code section 644.051 directs the Texas Department of Public Safety to adopt rules consistent with the federal regulations, and it may adopt them by reference. That means the hours a driver worked, the condition of the brakes and how the load was tied down are all measured against written standards, and the carrier is required to keep records that show whether those standards were met.

How a carrier’s insurer defends these claims

Our angle on truck cases comes from where our lawyers started. Howard Hill spent over 20 years with two of the nation’s largest auto and commercial insurance carriers before he joined our side, and he has more than 23 years of trial work in complex civil matters. Jonathan Harris, the Managing Attorney of Litigation and the attorney responsible for this site, spent more than a decade as a senior trial attorney for a major automobile insurance company.

What that experience shows is a pattern. A commercial insurer looks first for a way to move fault onto the car driver: a lane change, a sudden stop, speed, a phone. It looks at whether it can name someone else as partly responsible under Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 33.004, which lets a defendant ask to designate a responsible third party, generally at least 60 days before trial. It looks at the medical treatment for gaps and delays. And it decides early whether the records the carrier holds help or hurt, which is why the race for those records starts on day one.

• Expect a call from the carrier’s adjuster soon after the crash, often friendly and often asking for a recorded statement. Our post on giving a recorded statement after a Houston crash explains why we usually advise against it.
• Expect questions about your own driving before any question about the truck driver’s hours.
• Expect the company to say the driver was an independent contractor if that helps it, or to admit he was its employee if that limits the claims against it (more on that below).
• Expect an early offer before the full medical picture is known.

We wrote more about the habits adjusters share across every kind of claim on our insurance tactics page.

The federal safety rules that matter in a truck accident claim

A handful of federal rules come up again and again when a big rig crashes on a Houston freeway, and each one points to a record the carrier should have.

Hours of service and driver fatigue

Under 49 CFR 395.3, a driver hauling property must have 10 consecutive hours off duty before driving, may drive at most 11 hours, may not drive after the 14th hour on duty, and needs a 30-minute break after 8 hours of driving. There is also a weekly ceiling: no driving after 60 hours on duty in 7 days or 70 hours in 8 days, unless a 34-hour restart resets the count. Separately, 49 CFR 392.3 bars a driver from driving while too fatigued or ill to drive safely, and bars the carrier from permitting it. A driver can be inside the hour limits and still be too tired to drive, and the rule reaches both.

Electronic logs and the six-month clock

Under 49 CFR 395.8(a), an electronic logging device records the driver’s duty status. The rule also requires the carrier to keep duty records and supporting documents for at least six months, under 395.8(k). Six months is a minimum, not a promise, and once it passes a carrier may lawfully discard records that would have shown how long the driver had been on the road. That is the reason we send a written preservation letter to the carrier as early as we can, asking it to keep the logs, the supporting documents, dispatch messages, any engine and camera data and the driver’s file.

Phones, drugs and alcohol

A commercial driver may not text while driving (49 CFR 392.80) or hold a phone to talk (49 CFR 392.82), and both rules also bind the carrier, which may not allow or require it. No driver may be on duty under the influence of Schedule I drugs, amphetamines or narcotics (49 CFR 392.4), and no driver may use alcohol within 4 hours before going on duty or while on duty (49 CFR 392.5). Phone records and post-crash test results are among the first things we ask for.

Who was allowed behind the wheel

A commercial driver must be at least 21 years old (49 CFR 391.11(b)(1)), and the carrier must keep a driver qualification file on each driver (49 CFR 391.51). A pre-employment drug test is required before the driver performs safety-sensitive work (49 CFR 382.301). When a file is missing pieces, or shows warning signs the company overlooked, the claim can reach past the driver to the company that hired him.

Brakes, tires and cargo

Carriers must systematically inspect, repair and maintain every vehicle under their control (49 CFR 396.3), so maintenance and inspection records belong in every truck file we open. Cargo must be secured so it cannot shift or fall (49 CFR 393.100). A shifting or falling load may bring the shipper or loader into the claim.

Who can be responsible after a big rig crash

Responsibility in an 18-wheeler crash rarely stops with the person driving. Depending on the facts, a claim may name:

• The driver, for speeding, following too closely, an unsafe lane change, phone use, impairment or fatigue.
• The motor carrier, for the driver’s conduct on the job and for its own choices: who it hired, what hours it dispatched, whether it let a tired or impaired driver keep going, and how it maintained the truck.
• The owner of the tractor or trailer, when that is a different company from the carrier.
• The shipper or loader, when cargo was loaded or secured badly.
• A repair shop or parts maker, when a brake job, a tire or a part failed.
• Another driver, when a car cut in front of the truck and set off the crash.

Texas splits fault among everyone who caused the crash. Under Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 33.001, you may not recover if your share of responsibility is greater than 50 percent, and under section 33.012 your recovery is reduced by your own percentage. A defendant found more than 50 percent responsible is jointly and severally liable under section 33.013. This is why the carrier’s side works so hard to put a percentage on you, and why we work just as hard on the facts of how the truck was being driven.

How a Texas truck trial is split in two

In 2021 Texas added a subchapter to Civil Practice and Remedies Code chapter 72 for suits over commercial motor vehicle crashes. On a defendant’s motion, the trial is split into two phases: the jury decides compensatory damages first, and exemplary damages are tried in a second phase (section 72.052). In the first phase, evidence that the driver or company broke a safety regulation comes in only if it tends to prove that the violation caused the injury (section 72.053). And if the company admits the driver was its employee acting in the scope of the job, ordinary-negligence claims against the company, such as negligent hiring or supervision, may be limited in the first phase (section 72.054).

In practice, this law means a log violation is not useful just because it exists. We have to tie the violation to how the crash happened: the driver who was past his 14th hour and drifted, the brake that was overdue and failed. That work has to start while the records still exist.

Houston freight corridors and crash numbers

The Texas A&M Transportation Institute’s 2025 list of the 100 most congested road segments in Texas puts the West Loop (I-610) between the Katy Freeway and the Southwest Freeway first. The Katy Freeway (I-10) from the West Loop to the North Freeway ranks sixth, the North Loop West (I-610) between I-45 and I-10 ranks fifth, and the North Freeway (I-45) between the Sam Houston Tollway and Loop 610 ranks 21st. The Katy Freeway west of the Beltway appears twice more, and North Sam Houston Parkway (Beltway 8) between Tomball Parkway and the Hardy Toll Road ranks 27th. These are among the most congested roads in Texas, where stop-and-go traffic and heavy trucks share the same lanes.

TxDOT’s 2024 county table counts 115,173 crashes of all kinds in Harris County, with 546 fatal crashes in which 579 people died and 2,282 crashes with a suspected serious injury in which 2,688 people were seriously hurt. Those figures cover every vehicle type, not trucks alone, but they show the scale of what happens on the county’s roads in a single year. For crashes of every kind, see our main accident lawyers Houston page.

What to do after an 18-wheeler crash in Houston

• Get medical care first. Some injuries from a heavy impact take hours or days to show.
• Call the police so an officer investigates and files a crash report. Our post on getting a Houston crash report explains how to buy a copy.
• If you can, photograph the truck, the trailer, the company name and USDOT number on the cab door, the license plates and the scene.
• Get names and phone numbers of witnesses before they drive away.
• Do not give a recorded statement to the carrier’s insurer before you talk with a lawyer.
• Call us early so the preservation letter goes out while the logs and data are still on file.

Working with a truck accident lawyer in Houston

When you call our Houston office, a member of our team listens to what happened and a lawyer reviews it with you at no charge. If we take the case, we send preservation letters, request the crash report, gather the carrier’s records, and work with you on your medical care and bills. Our Houston attorneys, Jonathan Harris, Howard Hill and Ian Nelsen, all came to this work from the insurance side; you can read about them on our Houston team page.

Our terms on a truck case are No Fees or Costs Unless We Win: the firm advances the case costs of investigating and building a truck claim as they come up, and you owe us no attorney’s fee and no case costs unless money is recovered for you.

Jonathan Harris, Board Certified, Personal Injury Trial Law – Texas Board of Legal Specialization, is responsible for this site. If a commercial vehicle hit you or a family member anywhere in the Houston area, the consultation is free and our phones are answered 24/7.