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Truck Accident Glossary Get Familiar with Trucking Terms & Legal Jargon

To help you prepare for your case, our firm has put together definitions for some of the most common words and phrases that you might hear.

Glossary of Helpful Terms

Legal Support for Trucking Accident Victims

At Arnold & Itkin, we know how daunting it can be in the wake of a commercial vehicle accident. Not only are you dealing with physical injuries, but you are often faced with a complex legal system. Legal jargon and complicated terms can only aggravate the problem when professionals throw around words that you may have never heard before.

To help combat this problem, we have included definitions below on some of the most frequently used terms and phrases that you might hear during the duration of your case.

  • Accident Reconstructionist: We often work with accident reconstructionists to help build clients' cases. These are professionals who look at the scene of an accident, the vehicles involved, photographs, and any other data we provide to determine how an accident took place. Through their analysis, we can often determine causation.
  • Commercial Driver's License (CDL): This is the license that drivers must obtain if they want to legally operate commercial vehicles, such as those that have a gross vehicle weight of more than 26,000 pounds.
  • Compensatory Damages: These are damages paid to victims to provide compensation for what they have suffered in the accident. Typically, compensatory damages are split into economic damages (ex: lost wages and medical bills) and non-economic damages (ex: pain and suffering). Punitive damages may also be awarded.
  • Defendant: The defendant is the individual or entity who is sued in a civil lawsuit. In the case of a trucking accident, this may be the truck driver, trucking company, or even a parts manufacturer.
  • Department of Transportation (DOT): As a department of the U.S. government, DOT is responsible for the oversight and regulation of all transportation in the U.S., including the trucking industry.
  • Electronic Control Module: This is a device installed into a truck that records and stores data about a truck's activity. This can provide considerable insight into the activities of the truck seconds before an accident and should be preserved as valuable evidence. However, it is crucial that this data is immediately recovered as it can be lost.
  • Electronic On-Board Recording Devices: Often referred to as an EOBR, the electronic on-board recording device is installed on trucks to collect a variety of data such as the truck's speed, the truck's location, and even truck driver-trucking company communication. It is often seen as a way to enforce hours-of-service regulations.
  • Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA): As a branch of DOT, FMCSA is specifically responsible for trucking industry regulation. Their primary purpose is to reduce accidents and the injuries, fatalities, and property damage that crashes cause through proper truck / driver regulation.
  • Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSR): These are developed and enforced by FMCSA. All trucking companies and truck drivers in the nation are expected to abide by the FMCSR.
  • Hours-of-Service (HOS): These are regulations that are specifically geared toward reducing the amount of hours that a trucker can work in any given day or week, including specifics on how long they must rest. HOS were developed to help curb the problem of fatigued drivers on the road.
  • Logbook: To better enforce regulations such as HOS, all truckers are required to keep a logbook where they record how long they have worked / rested. Unfortunately, these are often easy to forge, leaving many truckers to refer to them as "comic books." EOBR has been proposed as a potential solution to be implemented in the future.
  • Negligence: A term often used in personal injury claims, negligence refers to the failure of an individual or entity to operate using reasonable care and due caution. This may be the commission of an act (such as driving drunk) or the failure to act (such as failure to properly maintain a vehicle).
  • National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB): The NTSB does not have any power in regards to the creation or enforcement of regulations, but they are often called upon to investigate problems or serious accidents. This information is then relayed back to other government agencies such as the FMCSA with recommendations.
  • Plaintiff: In a truck accident case, you would be the plaintiff. Plaintiffs are the individuals who were injured during the accidents; in wrongful death cases, the plaintiff may be the estate or decedent's family member.
  • Punitive Damages: One form of damages that can be awarded are punitive damages, which are designed to punish the defendant and deter future actions from the defendant and others.
  • Safety Rating: The FMCSA assigns a safety rating to every trucking company based on several factors, such as safety management controls, regulatory violations, and more.
  • Statute of Limitations (SOL): These are laws designed to provide a time limit on how long plaintiffs have to file their claim. The SOL laws will vary from state to state and vary from claim to claim.

Have further questions? We encourage you to contact our truck accident lawyers for immediate help!