After a crash with a semi-truck, the most important evidence is held by the trucking company, and federal rules let it destroy its driver’s logs after six months (49 CFR 395.8(k)). Dash-cam video, engine data and dispatch messages can be overwritten in days. A preservation letter sent in the first week is often the difference between a provable case and a denied one.

The trucking company’s safety director, its insurer and its lawyers are often on the scene or on the phone within hours. The injured family is in the emergency room. That gap is where cases are lost.

Why Are Trucking Cases Different From Car Accident Cases?

A loaded tractor-trailer can weigh 80,000 pounds. The physics are different, the injuries are different and the law is different. Interstate carriers operate under the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, which govern how long a driver may drive, how the truck must be maintained, who may be hired and what records must be kept. Interstate carriers hauling general freight must carry at least $750,000 in liability coverage (49 CFR 387.9), and many carry far more.

Those regulations are also a map to the evidence. Every rule creates a record. The question in nearly every trucking case is whether those records still exist by the time anyone asks for them.

What Evidence Does a Trucking Company Control?

Hours-of-service and electronic logging device data

Drivers are limited to 11 hours of driving inside a 14-hour on-duty window (49 CFR 395.3). Electronic logging devices record it. Carriers must keep those records and the supporting documents for six months (49 CFR 395.8(k)). After that, they may lawfully be destroyed. Fatigue is a recognized factor in serious truck crashes, and the ELD data is how you prove it.

Engine control module and event data

The truck’s own computer records speed, braking, throttle and sometimes following distance in the seconds before a hard stop. If the tractor is repaired or returned to service, that data can be overwritten. If it is sold for salvage, it is gone.

Forward- and driver-facing cameras

Many fleets run cameras that upload clips when a hard-braking event occurs. Those clips sit on a vendor’s servers with retention periods set by the carrier. Some are as short as a few weeks.

Dispatch, telematics and messaging

Dispatch records show the schedule the driver was being asked to keep. Telematics show where the truck was and how fast. In-cab messaging shows what the company told the driver, and when. A delivery window that could only be met by speeding or skipping rest is a company problem, not only a driver problem.

The driver qualification file

Carriers must keep a file on each driver with the application, driving record, medical certificate, road test and prior-employer checks (49 CFR 391.51). A driver who should never have been hired is a negligent-hiring claim against the company.

Post-accident drug and alcohol testing

Federal rules require testing after certain crashes, including every crash with a fatality (49 CFR 382.303). Whether the test was done, and what it showed, is in the carrier’s records.

Maintenance and inspection records

Brake adjustment, tire condition and pre-trip inspection reports all have required retention. Worn brakes on a downhill stretch of I-44 or I-70 are a maintenance failure with a paper trail.

What Is a Preservation Letter?

A preservation letter, sometimes called a spoliation letter, is a formal written demand to the trucking company, its insurer and its vendors to keep specific categories of evidence. Once a company has received that demand, destroying the evidence can carry serious consequences in the lawsuit, up to an instruction that the jury may infer the missing evidence would have hurt the company.

The letter has to be specific, it has to reach the right entities and it has to go fast. The Injury Counsel sends preservation demands within days of being retained and follows up to confirm the truck, the ELD and the camera data have been secured.

What About Delivery Vans and Local Fleets?

Not every commercial crash involves an interstate tractor-trailer. Delivery vans, box trucks, dump trucks and contractor fleets cause serious crashes on St. Louis streets every week. Many run their own telematics and driver-monitoring apps that score speed, braking and phone use. Those records are just as perishable, and the question of who actually controlled the driver’s route and pace can determine which company answers for the crash. The same preservation strategy applies.

Where Do These Crashes Happen Around St. Louis?

The region is a national freight crossroads. I-70, I-44, I-55, I-64 and the I-270 loop carry heavy truck traffic through and around the city, and the Mississippi River bridges funnel it into a handful of corridors. Work zones, the merges near the downtown interchanges and the grades on I-44 west of the city are recurring crash locations. If your crash happened in a work zone, the contractor’s traffic-control plan and records are another source of evidence that must be preserved.

What Should a Family Do in the First Week?

  • Get the crash report number from the responding agency. Serious truck crashes on the interstates are often handled by the Missouri State Highway Patrol.
  • Do not sign anything from the trucking company or its insurer, and do not give a recorded statement.
  • Do not let your own vehicle be repaired or scrapped until it has been photographed and, if needed, inspected.
  • Write down everything you remember, including the truck’s markings, trailer number and company name.
  • Call a lawyer who handles trucking cases. The Injury Counsel obtained a $975,000 settlement in a trucking case, and the work that produced it began with preservation.

Call The Injury Counsel at (314) 727-7220 for a free, confidential consultation. If a truck was involved, we start the preservation process immediately.