Does Texting Raise The Punitive Damages in a Truck Accident?

Getting into an accident with a commercial truck is traumatic enough. Often your little car doesn’t escape with just minor damages. When you discover the accident wasn’t just from a bad call or poor weather, but from texting, it can be almost infuriating. However, the good news is that if the truck driver was texting, it could raise the amount of punitive damages you receive.

The question is, how can the simple act of texting raise punitive damages? The first and primary reason is that texting is now being considered akin to drunk driving. In fact, when a phone is in the hands of a trucker and they are using it to text, it actually becomes 23 times more likely that they will cause a wreck on the road. This statistic is so staggering that it is even now put in CDL manuals to remind truckers how important focusing on the road is. So if they are texting, it is not as if they weren’t warned not to text and drive just like normal drivers.

Furthermore, by not acknowledging the warning in the CDL manual, by their employer, or even from a state law that dictates no cell phone use while driving, this is proving to be direct negligence on the truck driver’s part. All of that combined means that amount of punitive that you can receive from an accident.

If you have been involved in a trucking accident and need representation to make sure you get an amount to cover all your medical and repair needs, contact us today.