Austin Underride and Override Truck Accident Attorneys

The distinction determines almost everything about how your case is built.

Underride — Your Vehicle Went Under the Truck

A car strikes a trailer and slides beneath it. Rear underride happens when a vehicle hits the back of a trailer, most often one that is stopped or moving far slower than surrounding traffic. Side underride happens when a vehicle strikes the side of a trailer and passes beneath it, typically when a tractor-trailer turns across traffic or crosses a highway at night.

There is a steel bar on the back of every trailer designed to prevent the rear version. When it fails, that failure is frequently a separate legal claim.

Override — The Truck Came Over You

A truck strikes a passenger vehicle from behind and rides up over it. The mechanism is reversed and so is the liability posture: in an override the truck hit you, which usually makes fault far clearer than in a rear underride.

There is no equivalent guard on the front of a truck. Federal standards address rear impact guards only. That absence shapes the case in ways explained below.

Why Both Produce Similar Injuries

Modern vehicles are engineered around a controlled collapse. The hood, frame rails, and engine bay absorb energy over a distance so the occupant compartment does not deform, and airbags deploy timed to that sequence.

Both underride and override bypass that system. In an underride, the trailer bed sits above the car’s structural crash members and contacts the windshield and roof line. In an override, the truck’s mass is delivered onto the occupant compartment from above rather than into the crash structure.

The result in both is severe head, neck, and upper-body injury at speeds a conventional collision might not produce, and outcomes disproportionately fatal relative to the closing speed. That disproportion is not bad luck. It is the specific engineering problem these crashes present.

Override Crashes: When the Truck Hits You From Behind

Override cases are frequently stronger on liability than underride cases and frequently undervalued anyway, because they get treated as ordinary rear-end collisions with a bigger vehicle. They are not.

Why an Override Is Not an Ordinary Rear-End Crash

A loaded tractor-trailer can weigh twenty to thirty times what a passenger car weighs. The truck’s frame rails and bumper sit well above a car’s rear structure, so instead of striking the car’s crash zone, the truck’s mass climbs it.

Rear-seat occupants take the impact most directly, which is why override crashes are so catastrophic for children in back seats and for rideshare and taxi passengers.

The Stopping Distance Standard, and Why the Truck’s Age Matters

This is the single most useful fact on this page for an override case, and almost nobody explains it.

Truck stopping distance is not simply a fact of physics. It is a federal legal standard, and it changed.

Under Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 121, which governs air brake systems, a loaded heavy truck tractor was historically permitted to take up to 355 feet to stop from 60 miles per hour. In 2009 NHTSA issued a final rule reducing that to 250 feet for the vast majority of loaded heavy tractors, with 310 feet allowed for a small category of severe-service tractors. The change was phased in beginning in 2011. The Federal Register record documents both the original requirement and the reduction.

For comparison, the federal standard for passenger cars requires stopping from 60 miles per hour within roughly 216 feet.

Three consequences follow, and they are the backbone of an override negligence case:

• Following distance is the core duty. A vehicle that legally needs 250 feet to stop cannot safely travel at the following distance a car can. A truck driver who tailgates has already created the crash.
• The tractor’s model year matters. A tractor built to the pre-2011 standard may have been designed to the 355-foot requirement. Establishing which standard applied to that specific vehicle is a concrete, documentable investigative step.
• Brake condition matters enormously. These are the distances a properly maintained system is required to achieve. Worn linings, out-of-adjustment slack adjusters, or an inoperative brake on one axle push actual stopping distance well beyond the standard.

There Is No Front Override Guard Requirement

Federal standards FMVSS No. 223 and No. 224 require rear impact guards on trailers. There is no federal standard requiring a guard, energy-absorbing structure, or height-compatible bumper on the front of a truck tractor.

That absence cuts two ways. It means there is generally no equipment-failure claim analogous to the rear guard claim in an underride case. It also means the defense cannot point to compliance with a front override standard, because none exists.

Practically, override cases are built on driver and carrier negligence rather than on product defect — with the exception of brake system claims, which are discussed below.

How Override Liability Is Usually Proven

• Following too closely for the vehicle’s stopping capability, particularly in congested or slowing traffic.
• Speed inappropriate for conditions, including rain, congestion, grade, and load weight.
• Fatigue. A driver who fell asleep does not brake at all, which the electronic data will show clearly. Hours-of-service and log records are central.
• Distraction, established through phone records and in-cab camera footage.
• Impairment, with post-crash testing records obtained through the carrier.
• Brake system failure or neglect, under 49 CFR 393.48 requiring brakes to be operative and 49 CFR 396.3 requiring systematic inspection, repair, and maintenance. Roadside inspection history and maintenance files are obtainable.
• Overloading, which lengthens stopping distance beyond what the brake system was certified to achieve.
• Negligent hiring, training, supervision, or dispatch pressure by the carrier.

The “Sudden Stop” Defense

Expect it in every override case. The carrier will argue that the vehicle in front stopped abruptly and unreasonably, or cut in, leaving no opportunity to react.

The answer is usually in the electronic data. A tractor’s engine control module and event data recorder capture speed, throttle, and brake application in the seconds before impact. If the data shows no braking at all, the sudden-stop story collapses — a driver who never braked was not reacting to anything. If it shows braking that began too late, that speaks to attention and following distance rather than to the other driver’s conduct.

This is why preserving the electronic data quickly matters as much in an override case as preserving the trailer does in an underride case.

Underride Crashes and the Guard That Was Supposed to Stop It

What Federal Law Requires

Two standards govern rear underride protection. FMVSS No. 223 is an equipment standard setting strength and energy-absorption requirements for guards. FMVSS No. 224 is a vehicle standard requiring new trailers and semitrailers rated at 10,000 pounds or more to carry a guard meeting FMVSS 223.

Separately, motor carriers have an operational obligation under 49 CFR 393.86 to keep rear impact protection in place and in condition.

What the 2022 Upgrade Changed

In July 2022, NHTSA issued a final rule upgrading FMVSS 223 and 224, adopting requirements similar to Canada’s standard and extending protection to occupants of compact and subcompact cars striking a trailer rear at roughly 35 miles per hour. The prior requirement was built around a 30 mile-per-hour impact.

Congress mandated the upgrade in the 2021 infrastructure law, which also directed research on side underride guards, created a federal advisory committee on underride protection, and instructed the agency to improve how underride crashes are counted in state crash data.

What the Standard Still Does Not Do

The 2022 upgrade set requirements at a level nearly all trailers already on the road met. Safety advocates petitioned NHTSA to go further, including a requirement that guards perform in offset impacts where only part of the vehicle strikes the guard. NHTSA denied those petitions, reasoning that a stronger requirement would not be reasonable or practicable across all trailers subject to the standards.

That is a cost and feasibility judgment applied fleetwide. It is not a finding that the resulting guard is adequate to protect any particular person in any particular crash. A federal safety standard is a floor, not a certificate.

Real-world underride crashes routinely involve impacts faster than 35 miles per hour, offset rather than centered, or angled — conditions the standard does not test for.

Side Underride Guards Are Not Required at All

There is no federal standard mandating side underride protection. Congress directed further research and NHTSA has signaled possible rulemaking, but a trailer can travel Texas highways today with an open gap along each side and be fully compliant.

Some carriers voluntarily install side guards or skirts. Aerodynamic skirts, however, are designed for fuel economy rather than impact and generally are not engineered to stop a vehicle.

How a Rear Guard Fails

• Corrosion and prior damage. Guards sit low, close to road spray and debris. Rust at the mounting points dramatically reduces strength, and a guard previously bent at a dock and never replaced may look serviceable and perform nothing like a new one.
• Weld and mounting failure. Frequently the guard survives and the mounting fails, shearing at the weld or tearing out of the trailer frame. Metallurgical examination can distinguish a manufacturing defect from overload, but only if the parts are preserved.
• Geometry. Ground clearance, width, and how far the guard sits forward determine whether it engages a striking vehicle at all.
• Missing, exempt, or non-compliant guards. Standards apply to trailers manufactured after specified dates, and some equipment categories are treated differently. Determining what standard applied to that specific trailer on its date of manufacture is one of the first factual questions.
• Aftermarket repairs. A guard rebuilt with the wrong steel, the wrong welding procedure, or altered geometry may bear no resemblance in performance to the certified original.

Why Underride Cases Are Two Cases, Not One

This is the reason underride claims are so frequently undervalued, and it does not apply to override cases in the same way.

The Trucking Negligence Case

Did the driver stop in a travel lane, pull across traffic without adequate clearance, drive without lights, park on a shoulder without warning devices, or operate a trailer whose guard and markings were not maintained? Was the carrier negligent in hiring, training, supervision, or maintenance?

The Crashworthiness Case

The second claim asks a different question: not what caused the collision, but what caused the injuries to be as severe as they were.

Texas recognizes claims where a product defect did not cause the accident but made the resulting injuries worse. Applied here, the argument is that the rear impact guard was defectively designed, defectively manufactured, improperly installed, or inadequately maintained, and that a guard performing as it should have would have kept the vehicle out of the trailer.

The defendants are entirely different — the trailer manufacturer, the guard manufacturer, the trailer owner or lessor, a maintenance contractor — and so is the insurance.

Why This Matters Even If the Other Driver Was at Fault

Read this twice if a family member is being blamed for the crash.

Rear impact guards exist because vehicles sometimes strike the backs of trailers. That is the entire premise of the regulation. A guard that only works when nobody hits it would serve no purpose.

So the fact that a driver rear-ended a trailer does not answer the question the crashworthiness claim asks. Even where a driver bears responsibility for the impact, the guard’s failure can be a separate and substantial cause of why the impact was catastrophic instead of survivable.

Families are frequently told, sometimes by lawyers, that there is no case because the car hit the truck. That conclusion skips the second claim entirely.

The Texas Statute That Decides the Product Case

Anyone bringing a defect claim against a trailer or guard manufacturer in Texas has to reckon with one provision, and most law firm pages do not mention it.

The Compliance Presumption

Under Section 82.008 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, there is a rebuttable presumption that a manufacturer is not liable for a design defect if it establishes that the product complied with mandatory federal safety standards applicable at the time of manufacture that governed the particular product risk alleged to have caused the harm.

A trailer manufacturer whose guard met FMVSS 223 and 224 will invoke this immediately. It is the first move in the defense playbook and a real obstacle rather than a formality.

How the Presumption Is Rebutted

The statute allows a claimant to overcome it by establishing either that the applicable federal standards were inadequate to protect the public from unreasonable risks of injury, or that the manufacturer withheld or misrepresented material information to the federal agency.

The first path is where underride cases live, and the regulatory record described above is directly relevant. When an agency declines to strengthen a standard on the stated basis that doing so would not be practicable across all trailers, that is a statement about feasibility and cost. Whether the resulting standard is adequate to protect the public is a different question, and it is precisely the question the statute puts to a jury.

This is expert-intensive work requiring accident reconstruction, biomechanics, metallurgy, and design engineering. It is not a claim to bring casually, and it is not one to abandon reflexively either.

Why Side Underride Claims Sit Outside the Presumption

The presumption applies only where a mandatory federal standard governed the specific product risk that caused the harm. There is no federal standard requiring side underride protection, and Texas courts have recognized a meaningful difference between a standard that is inadequate and one that simply does not address the risk at issue.

The practical effect is counterintuitive. The absence of a side underride regulation — which looks like bad news for an injured person — may mean the manufacturer has no compliance shield to raise on that claim at all.

How This Applies to Override Cases

Largely, it does not — which is worth understanding rather than assuming.

Because there is no front override guard standard, there is generally no product claim against a truck manufacturer for the absence of one, and correspondingly no compliance presumption for a defendant to invoke on that issue. Override cases are typically built entirely on driver and carrier negligence.

The exception is the braking system. Where a brake component failed rather than being neglected, a product claim against the component manufacturer may exist, and Section 82.008 would then be relevant to that claim.

Regulatory Violations That Come Up in These Cases

• 49 CFR 393.86 — rear impact guards and rear end protection. The operational requirement that carriers actually have compliant rear protection on the trailers they run.
• 49 CFR 393.11 — lamps, reflective devices, and conspicuity. Trailers must carry retroreflective sheeting in specified patterns. Missing, dirty, faded, painted-over, or damaged conspicuity tape is one of the most common and most overlooked contributors to nighttime underride, and it is a discrete violation that is easy to document if someone photographs the trailer promptly.
• 49 CFR 393.48 — brakes to be operative, central to override cases.
• 49 CFR 396.3 — systematic inspection, repair, and maintenance. A bent or corroded guard never repaired, or a brake system out of adjustment, is a maintenance failure, and inspection records show whether anyone looked.
• Lighting requirements, including working tail, clearance, and marker lamps.
• Stopped vehicle warning devices. A truck disabled on a shoulder or in a lane must deploy warning devices within a set time, and failure to do so is frequently central in rear underride cases.
• Hours-of-service rules, where fatigue contributed. See our page on truck driver fatigue.

You can review a carrier’s federal safety record, inspection history, and crash history through the FMCSA’s company snapshot using its DOT number, which typically appears on the truck door.

Evidence That Disappears Within Days

These cases have the most acute evidence-preservation problem of any truck claim, for a simple commercial reason: damaged equipment is a revenue asset sitting idle.

In an Underride Case

• The trailer itself, typically towed, inspected by the carrier’s own people, repaired, and returned to service quickly. Once the guard is cut off and replaced, the central physical evidence in the product case is gone permanently.
• The guard and its mounting hardware, which need to be preserved as physical objects rather than photographed and discarded. Fracture surfaces degrade with corrosion and handling.
• Photographs of conspicuity tape condition, which cannot be recreated after the trailer is washed or repaired.

In an Override Case

• The tractor’s engine control module and event data recorder, capturing speed, throttle, and brake application before impact. This can be overwritten by continued operation, which is the single most urgent item in an override case.
• Brake system components and measurements, including lining thickness and slack adjuster settings, which change the moment the vehicle is serviced.
• Roadside inspection and maintenance history for that specific tractor.

In Both

• Electronic logging device records and telematics, showing hours, routes, stops, and speed history.
• Dashcam and forward-facing camera footage, often on short retention cycles.
• The passenger vehicle, which insurers move to salvage quickly. Crush measurements from both vehicles are how reconstruction establishes closing speed and intrusion depth.
• The scene, including sightlines, lighting, and signage.

A written spoliation and preservation letter needs to reach the carrier, the equipment owner, and their insurers within days — identifying the tractor and trailer by VIN and unit number and demanding preservation of the guard, mounting hardware, brake components, and electronic data rather than repair or overwriting.

In serious cases, a joint inspection with the defense and independent experts should be arranged before anything is disassembled. That does not happen unless someone asks quickly.

Who Can Be Held Responsible

• The truck driver, for following distance, speed, fatigue, attention, stopping, turning, or backing unsafely.
• The motor carrier, for its own negligence in hiring, training, supervision, dispatch pressure, and maintenance, and for the driver’s conduct.
• The trailer manufacturer, for the design or manufacture of the rear guard and its mounting.
• The rear impact guard manufacturer, where supplied by a separate company.
• Brake component manufacturers, in override cases involving a genuine component failure.
• The equipment owner or lessor, frequently not the same entity as the carrier operating it.
• A maintenance or repair contractor that inspected, serviced, or rebuilt the guard or brake system.
• A shipper or broker, in circumstances involving loading, scheduling pressure, or carrier selection.
• A cargo loader, where weight distribution affected trailer height, stopping distance, or handling.

Identifying every responsible party early determines how much insurance coverage exists, and coverage is the practical ceiling on any recovery.

Common Austin Scenarios

Interstate 35 and the Regional Freight Corridors

I-35 through Austin carries enormous truck volume alongside dense commuter traffic, with frequent congestion, sudden slowdowns, and long-running construction. US-183, SH-130, US-290, and SH-71 add heavy freight movement at highway speeds.

Both crash types concentrate where fast traffic meets stopped or slow vehicles — construction queues, backups at interchanges, and lanes that stop without warning after a curve or crest. Underride happens when a car reaches the queue first. Override happens when the truck does.

Stop-and-Go Congestion

The classic override setting. Traffic compresses, a truck traveling at a following distance appropriate for a car is not able to stop in the distance its brakes legally require, and the vehicle ahead is struck from behind.

Trailers Stopped In or Near Travel Lanes

Disabled trucks on shoulders, vehicles pulled onto a shoulder that is too narrow, and trucks stopped for a delivery at night. Warning device requirements exist precisely for this situation.

Turning and Crossing Movements at Night

The side underride pattern. A tractor-trailer turns left across oncoming lanes or crosses a highway from a farm road or facility entrance, and the trailer occupies the roadway broadside. To an approaching driver at night, a dark trailer side presents almost nothing to see if conspicuity markings are degraded.

Backing Across Roadways

Trucks backing into loading docks, yards, and driveways that require crossing a public road. Common along industrial corridors in East Austin, Pflugerville, and San Marcos.

Weather and Visibility

Central Texas rain reduces visibility and increases stopping distance at the same time — a compounding problem in override cases specifically, because a wet surface lengthens a distance that was already long. Wet, dirty conspicuity tape also reflects poorly, which drives underride risk.

Related Crash Types

These crashes sometimes follow another failure — a jackknife that leaves a trailer across lanes, or a rollover that leaves equipment in the roadway. Poor maintenance is a recurring thread, addressed on our inadequate truck maintenance page, and speed is addressed on our speeding truck accident page.

If You Lost Someone

A significant share of these crashes are fatal, and we would rather address that directly than write around it.

Under Texas law, a surviving spouse, children, and parents may bring a wrongful death claim, and the estate may bring a survival claim for what the person experienced before death. Both proceed together. Our truck accident wrongful death page covers the framework in more detail.

Two practical points, offered without pressure:

• The evidence preservation problem is more urgent in fatal cases, not less. Families are managing a funeral while the carrier’s investigators are typically at the scene within hours and the equipment is on its way to a repair facility. A preservation letter costs a family nothing and can be sent while everything else is happening.
• Medical examiner and autopsy findings matter to the crashworthiness question, because they speak to the mechanism of injury. Those records should be obtained and reviewed by someone who understands what they establish.

You do not need to make any decisions about a lawsuit right now. If you want the equipment preserved while your family takes the time it needs, that is something we can do quickly and without any commitment from you.

Injuries and Compensation

Because the passenger compartment is intruded upon directly, survivors commonly face traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, severe facial and skull fractures, and injuries requiring extensive reconstructive surgery. Outcomes tend toward the catastrophic injury end of the spectrum.

Recoverable damages typically include:

• Emergency, surgical, and hospital care
• Lifetime medical treatment, rehabilitation, and reconstructive procedures
• Attendant care, skilled nursing, and life care planning costs
• Assistive equipment, home modification, and vehicle modification
• Lost wages and lost earning capacity
• Physical pain, mental anguish, physical impairment, and disfigurement
• Loss of consortium and household services
• In fatal cases, funeral and burial expenses plus the losses recoverable in wrongful death and survival actions
• Exemplary damages, where gross negligence is established by the required standard of proof

Cases with lifetime care needs are built with life care planners, economists, and vocational experts. No lawyer can responsibly quote a figure before the evidence is developed and every available policy identified.

What the Defense Will Argue

In an Underride Case

• The passenger vehicle rear-ended the truck — the opening move in nearly every rear underride case.
• Closing speed exceeded anything the guard was designed for.
• Compliance with FMVSS 223 and 224, invoking the Texas compliance presumption.
• No alternative safer design would have changed the outcome.

In an Override Case

• The vehicle ahead stopped suddenly or cut in — the sudden-stop defense, usually answered by the electronic data.
• The car’s brake lights were not working.
• Another vehicle’s actions created an unavoidable situation.
• Mechanical failure the carrier claims it could not have anticipated, which maintenance records test.

In Both

• Driver inattention, distraction, fatigue, or impairment attributed to the claimant.
• Comparative responsibility, seeking to push the claimant above the bar that eliminates recovery entirely.

Comparative Fault and Why It Is Decisive Here

Texas applies proportionate responsibility. A claimant found 50 percent or less responsible recovers damages reduced by their share. At 51 percent or more, they recover nothing.

In underride cases that threshold does more work than in almost any other claim type, because the defense will attempt to load all responsibility onto the person who struck the trailer.

The crashworthiness claim is the counterweight. It reframes the allocation question from a single issue — who caused the collision — into two: who caused the collision, and who caused it to be catastrophic. Where a guard failed to perform as it should have, that failure is a separate contributing cause and belongs in the allocation.

In override cases the dynamic is usually reversed and more favorable, because the truck struck the claimant. The fight there is over whether the claimant did something to create the emergency, which is why the electronic data matters so much.

What to Do After an Underride or Override Crash

At the Scene, If You Are Able

• Call 911 and accept medical evaluation. These crashes produce internal and head trauma that may not be apparent immediately.
• Photograph the point of impact — the trailer’s rear or side and its guard in an underride, the tractor’s front and bumper in an override.
• Photograph the conspicuity tape — its condition, coverage, and whether it is dirty, faded, missing, or painted over.
• Record the tractor and trailer unit numbers, license plates, and the DOT number on the tractor door, plus the carrier’s name.
• Photograph lighting — whether tail lamps and marker lamps were working.
• Photograph the scene, sightlines, skid marks or their absence, and any warning devices deployed or missing.
• Get witness names and phone numbers.

In the First Days

• Call a lawyer immediately so a preservation letter reaches the carrier before the trailer is repaired or the tractor’s electronic data is overwritten. This is the single most time-sensitive step in the case.
• Do not authorize salvage or release of your own vehicle. Its crush pattern is evidence.
• Decline recorded statements to the carrier’s insurer or a third-party adjuster.
• Obtain the crash report through TxDOT crash records.
• Keep all medical records and bills, and follow through on treatment.
• Stay off social media about the crash.
• Do not accept an early settlement. Trucking insurers move fast on serious cases precisely because the exposure is large.

How These Cases Proceed

Week One

Preservation and spoliation letters go to the carrier, equipment owner, and insurers. Vehicle release is stopped. Medical care is established. In serious cases, scene investigation and an inspection request happen immediately.

Vehicle and Component Inspection

A joint inspection of the tractor, trailer, guard, brake system, and both vehicles is arranged with experts present. Electronic data downloads are performed under protocol so the results are usable later.

Expert Development

Accident reconstruction establishes closing speed, impact geometry, and intrusion depth. In underride cases, design engineering and metallurgy address the guard. In override cases, braking analysis and human factors address stopping distance and reaction. Biomechanics connects intrusion to injury in both.

Suit and Discovery

Suit is filed, often in the district courts served by the Travis County District Clerk, though product claims against out-of-state manufacturers frequently involve federal court. Discovery includes carrier safety records, maintenance histories, driver qualification files, manufacturer design and testing files, and prior similar incidents.

Resolution

Most cases resolve at mediation. Underride cases with a developed product claim generally take longer — commonly two to four years — because the engineering work is substantial and manufacturers defend design claims vigorously. Override cases built on trucking negligence alone typically resolve faster.

Deadlines That Apply

• Days — equipment preservation. No statute governs this. It is simply the window before the trailer is repaired or the electronic data overwritten.
• Days to weeks — dashcam footage and telematics.
• Two years — the statute of limitations for personal injury and wrongful death claims in most cases.
• Product claim timing rules, which require separate analysis and are a reason not to assume an older trailer or tractor forecloses a claim without checking.
• As short as 45 days to six months if a governmental entity or vehicle is involved.
• Policy notice requirements under your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, which run far shorter than the legal deadline.

Deadlines depend on your facts and must be confirmed by an attorney reviewing your case.

How We Handle These Cases

1. Free Case Review

We take the full account, identify the carrier, equipment owner, and likely manufacturers, and assess immediately whether a crashworthiness or brake-system claim is realistic alongside the negligence case.

2. Same-Day Preservation Where Needed

Spoliation letters identifying the tractor and trailer by VIN and unit number, demanding preservation of the guard, mounting hardware, brake components, electronic data, and maintenance records. In serious cases this happens the day we are retained.

3. Joint Inspection

Coordinated inspection with qualified experts before anything is repaired or disassembled, including a controlled download of the tractor’s electronic data.

4. Two-Track Investigation Where It Applies

In underride cases, the trucking case and the product case are developed in parallel. In override cases, the focus is the carrier’s safety record, driver qualification file, hours, and brake maintenance history.

5. Straight Assessment

If the engineering does not support a crashworthiness claim, we say so and focus on the case that exists. Product claims are expensive, and pursuing one that experts will not support serves nobody.

6. Resolution or Trial

Most cases resolve at mediation. We build every file as though it will be tried, because manufacturers and trucking insurers settle seriously only when that preparation is visible.

Questions Worth Asking Any Lawyer You Consider

• Will you investigate a claim against the trailer, guard, or brake manufacturer, or only the trucking company? If the answer is only the trucking company, you may be getting half the case.
• When will a preservation letter go out, and what will it demand? If it is not going out this week, the physical and electronic evidence may be gone.
• How quickly can we download the tractor’s electronic data? In an override case this is the central evidence.
• How do you plan to handle the Texas compliance presumption under Section 82.008? Anyone bringing a design claim in Texas should be able to answer without looking it up.
• What experts will you retain, and who pays for them if we do not recover?
• Have you handled a crashworthiness case before, and will you associate counsel if needed? An honest answer is worth more than a confident one.
• What are the weaknesses in my case?
• Who will actually work my file, and can I reach an attorney?

Why Families Choose Kelley Wolff Injury Attorneys

• We treat underride as two cases, because that is what it is.
• We move on the equipment immediately. Everything else can wait a week. The guard and the electronic data cannot.
• We know the regulatory record, including what the federal standards require, what they do not, and what the agency said when it declined to go further.
• We use the stopping distance standard, because in an override case a truck’s legally required braking distance is the frame the entire negligence argument fits into.
• We plan for Section 82.008 from the start, rather than discovering the compliance presumption when it is raised.
• Honest screening. If the engineering will not support a product claim, you will hear it early.
• Care with families. In fatal cases we handle the urgent preservation work without pressuring anyone to decide anything before they are ready.
• Local practice across Travis, Williamson, Hays, Bastrop, and Bell counties, in state and federal court.
• Contingency representation. No attorney’s fee unless we recover, and we advance the case costs, which here are substantial.
• Direct attorney access. You will be able to reach Travis S. Kelley and Colin Wolff about your case.

Talk to an Austin Underride and Override Truck Accident Attorney

In an underride crash, there is a steel bar on the back of that trailer that exists for one reason: to stop what happened from happening. In an override crash, there is a federal standard telling that truck how much room it needed to stop, and a recorder on board that captured whether the driver ever tried.

Both of those answers are available — but only while the equipment still exists in the condition it was in that day, and only before the data is overwritten.

That is usually a matter of days, and it is the one part of these cases that cannot be recovered later.

Consultations are free. If the evidence will not support a claim, we will tell you that and focus on the case that does exist. If we take your case, you pay no attorney’s fee unless we recover for you.