Written by Travis S. Kelley

A loaded semi-truck can weigh 80,000 pounds at legal capacity. At 45 miles per hour, it needs nearly 500 feet to stop. So when one of those trucks blows through a red light and hits your vehicle, the damage is rarely minor — and the liability question is rarely simple.

I’ve handled commercial truck crash cases in Austin for years. What surprises most clients isn’t the severity of their injuries — it’s how many different parties can share responsibility for what happened. Below, I walk through the most common liability scenarios I see after Austin-area crashes involving 18-wheelers, city vehicles, rental cars, defective parts, and improperly loaded cargo.

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Who Is Liable if an 18-Wheeler Ran a Red Light and Hit My Vehicle in Austin TX?

The driver is the obvious starting point, but in most commercial trucking cases, the driver alone rarely holds all the financial exposure. Texas follows a modified comparative fault rule under Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code § 33.001. That means multiple parties can be assigned fault percentages, and you can recover as long as your share of fault is 50% or below.

When an 18-wheeler runs a red light, here’s who I look at:

The driver. If the trucker ran a red light, they violated Texas Transportation Code § 544.007. That’s negligence per se — meaning the law establishes the duty and the breach simultaneously. You don’t have to prove the driver should have stopped. The red light proves it.

The trucking company. Under federal motor carrier regulations enforced by the FMCSA, carriers have an independent duty to hire qualified drivers, enforce hours-of-service rules, and maintain their equipment. If the driver was fatigued from an illegal driving schedule, or if the company knew about prior safety violations and kept the driver on the road anyway, the carrier shares liability. Texas also recognizes respondeat superior — the employer is liable for a driver’s negligent acts committed within the scope of employment.

The truck owner. Sometimes the company that owns the truck is different from the carrier operating it. Lease arrangements are common in trucking. If a negligently maintained truck contributed to the crash — faulty brakes, for example — the owner can face direct liability for negligent entrustment or maintenance failure.

A broker or shipper. This is less common but worth investigating. If a freight broker placed an unqualified carrier on a load, some Texas courts have allowed negligent hiring claims against brokers. These cases are harder to prove but worth examining when the carrier has a spotty safety record.

In practice, the cases I find most valuable to clients involve the trucking company’s internal records — dispatch logs, driver qualification files, and electronic logging device (ELD) data. The ELD will tell us exactly how many hours that driver had been behind the wheel before the crash. If that number violates federal limits, it shifts the case significantly toward the carrier.

Get to an Austin 18-Wheeler Truck Accident Attorney quickly. Commercial carriers have rapid-response teams that show up at crash scenes to protect their interests. You need someone protecting yours just as fast.

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Can I Sue if I Was Injured by a Driver Who Ran a Red Light at a Busy Austin Intersection?

Yes. Running a red light in Texas is a statutory traffic violation, and as I noted above, it establishes negligence per se. You don’t have to argue about whether stopping was the reasonable thing to do — the statute already answers that.

The practical question is whether the at-fault driver carries enough insurance to cover your losses. Texas requires minimum auto liability coverage of $30,000 per person and $60,000 per incident under the 25/50/25 rule. Those minimums are often inadequate for serious injuries. If the driver is underinsured or uninsured, your own UM/UIM coverage becomes critical.

Some intersections in Austin generate a disproportionate share of serious crashes. MoPac and Slaughter Lane, the US-183 frontage road intersections, and the 290/71 junction near Oak Hill all see heavy commercial and commuter traffic. If the crash happened at a location with a documented history of signal timing problems or visibility issues, the city or TxDOT could potentially share liability for a dangerous condition — though that claim carries its own procedural hurdles.

From a litigation standpoint, intersection crash cases usually turn on the physical evidence: traffic camera footage, signal timing records, skid marks, and witness statements. The CDC’s data on motor vehicle crash injuries consistently shows that intersection collisions account for a significant share of serious injuries nationally. Locally, those numbers track the same pattern.

One mistake I see clients make: waiting too long to seek medical care because they feel “okay” at the scene. Adrenaline masks pain. Traumatic brain injuries and soft tissue damage often don’t produce noticeable symptoms for 24 to 72 hours. The gap between the crash and your first medical visit becomes a weapon in the insurance company’s hands. See a doctor that day.

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Who Is Liable if I Was Hit by a City Bus or Capital Metro Vehicle in Austin?

This scenario adds a layer of complexity because you’re potentially making a claim against a government entity. Capital Metro is a public transit authority, and claims against it follow different rules than claims against private drivers.

Under the Texas Tort Claims Act (Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code § 101.001 et seq.), governmental entities generally have immunity from suit — but that immunity is waived for personal injuries caused by the negligent operation of a motor vehicle by a government employee acting within the scope of their employment. A Capital Metro bus driver running a red light or failing to yield fits squarely within that waiver.

The catch is the notice requirement. Texas law generally requires that you provide written notice of a claim to a governmental entity within six months of the incident. Miss that window and you likely lose your right to sue, regardless of how clear the fault is. I’ve seen people forfeit legitimate claims simply because they didn’t know about this requirement and spent the first six months dealing with insurance adjusters.

Damages against governmental entities are also capped under the Texas Tort Claims Act — currently $250,000 per person and $500,000 per occurrence for bodily injury. If your injuries exceed those amounts, you may be able to pursue additional recovery through other avenues, including claims against individual employees in certain circumstances, though those cases are difficult.

Document everything immediately after a bus or Capital Metro crash. The vehicle number, route number, driver name if you can get it, and the exact time and location. Capital Metro maintains its own incident records and dashcam footage — that evidence needs to be preserved quickly through a formal legal hold letter.

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Who Is Liable if a Rental Car Driver Hit Me in Austin?

Most people assume the rental car company bears responsibility. The answer is more complicated in 2026 than it was a decade ago.

Federal law — specifically the Graves Amendment, 49 U.S.C. § 30106 — largely shields rental car companies from vicarious liability for the negligent acts of their renters, as long as the company itself wasn’t negligent in renting the vehicle. So if someone rents a car from Enterprise or Hertz and then runs a red light and hits you, you generally cannot pursue the rental company simply because they own the car.

Your primary target is the at-fault driver and their personal auto insurance policy. Most personal auto policies extend coverage to rental vehicles. If the driver used a credit card to rent, some premium credit cards include secondary rental coverage. The rental company’s own liability coverage is typically a last resort.

Where the rental company can face direct liability is if they rented to someone who was visibly impaired, knowingly rented a vehicle with a known mechanical defect, or violated their own rental eligibility policies. Those cases exist, but they require evidence that goes beyond the crash itself.

The Austin Motor Vehicle Accident Attorneys at our firm routinely deal with the insurance layering in rental car cases — sorting out which policy applies first, negotiating across multiple carriers, and identifying whether any negligent entrustment claims against the rental company are viable.

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Can I Recover Compensation if I Was Injured by a Defective Airbag or Vehicle Part in Austin?

Yes — and these cases operate under a completely different legal theory than driver negligence cases. Product liability law applies, and it allows injured people to hold manufacturers, distributors, and retailers accountable without proving anyone acted carelessly. The question is whether the product was defective, not whether someone was at fault in the traditional sense.

Texas recognizes three types of product defects:

Manufacturing defects — the design was fine but this particular unit was built wrong. Takata airbag cases, which produced over 19 million recalls in the U.S. and caused documented deaths and injuries, are the most prominent recent example. A Takata-equipped airbag that ruptured and sent metal shrapnel into the vehicle cabin was a manufacturing defect.

Design defects — the entire product line is dangerous because the design itself is flawed. Texas applies a “risk-utility” test: would a reasonable alternative design have reduced the risk without making the product impractical?

Marketing defects (failure to warn) — the product was reasonably safe when used as directed, but the manufacturer failed to warn about known risks associated with foreseeable uses.

Product liability cases in Austin are worth pursuing even when the underlying crash was someone else’s fault. If a defective seatbelt failed to restrain you during impact, that failure is a separate injury-causing event. The manufacturer of that seatbelt may share liability for the enhanced injuries you suffered because of the failure — a legal theory sometimes called the “crashworthiness doctrine.”

These cases require engineering experts, access to the manufacturer’s internal testing and design records through discovery, and often parallel investigation of any relevant NHTSA recalls or defect investigations. They’re resource-intensive, which is why many personal injury lawyers refer them out rather than take them. We handle them directly.

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Who Do I Hold Accountable if I Was Injured by an Improperly Loaded Commercial Vehicle in Austin?

Cargo loading negligence creates a distinct chain of liability that often involves parties you’d never think to name in a lawsuit.

Under federal regulations found in 49 CFR Part 393, commercial vehicle cargo must be properly secured. Violations — unsecured loads, overweight axles, improperly distributed weight — are federal regulatory violations. When improperly secured cargo shifts and causes a truck to jackknife, roll over, or shed debris on the highway, the parties responsible for loading that cargo face direct liability.

In my experience, the loading chain typically involves:

The shipper. The company that loaded the cargo or directed how it should be loaded. If they packed a flatbed trailer improperly and the load shifted on I-35 through Austin, they face liability even though they weren’t behind the wheel.

The carrier. The trucking company has an independent federal duty to inspect loads before departure and refuse to haul cargo that isn’t properly secured. If the driver accepted a load they could have discovered was improperly secured through a reasonable inspection, the carrier shares responsibility.

A third-party loader. Many shippers hire specialized loading companies. That company — its employees and its insurance — becomes a separate potential defendant.

Falling cargo cases on Austin highways are particularly dangerous because other drivers have no warning. Unlike a rear-end collision where you might have a second to brace, debris in the roadway at 70 mph gives you no time. The FMCSA’s crash data consistently shows that cargo-related crashes produce serious injuries at a higher rate than many other commercial vehicle crash types.

Preserving evidence is critical in these cases. The truck, its cargo, loading records, Bills of Lading, and weigh station records all need to be captured through a litigation hold before evidence disappears. This is one of the reasons I tell clients to call a lawyer before they call the insurance company.

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What These Cases Have in Common?

Each scenario above involves multiple potential defendants, layered insurance coverage, and evidence that starts to disappear within hours of the crash. The driver, the company, the cargo loader, the manufacturer — each has their own insurer, and each insurer’s job is to minimize what they pay.

The American Bar Association recommends that accident victims consult with a personal injury attorney before giving recorded statements to any insurer — including their own. That advice is especially sound in commercial vehicle and product liability cases, where what you say in the first 72 hours can directly affect the outcome two years later.

FindLaw and Justia both offer useful overviews of Texas negligence law, but reading about it and applying it to your specific facts are different things. The liability analysis in a commercial trucking case looks nothing like a standard two-car fender bender.

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Talk to an Austin Personal Injury Attorney Before You Settle

Insurance adjusters move fast after serious crashes. They call injured people within 24 to 48 hours — sometimes sooner — with settlement offers that sound reasonable until you’ve seen a medical specialist and understand the full scope of your injuries. A settlement you accept before your injuries have fully declared themselves is a settlement you can’t reopen.

Texas has a two-year statute of limitations for most personal injury claims under Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code § 16.003. For claims against government entities like Capital Metro, the notice deadline is six months. Don’t let either deadline sneak up on you.

Kelley Wolff Injury Attorneys | Austin Accident Lawyers handles the full range of personal injury claims — from commercial truck crashes to product liability to government vehicle collisions. Learn more about our team and our experience before you decide who to trust with your case.

Our Austin office is located at 17800 Hamilton Pool Rd Ste. 203, Austin, TX 78738, United States. We serve clients throughout Central Texas and handle cases on a contingency fee basis — you pay nothing unless we recover for you.

Call us at (512)-470-6068 or contact us online to schedule a free consultation. The sooner we can look at your case, the more options you have.

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Travis S. Kelley is a personal injury attorney at Kelley Wolff Injury Attorneys | Austin Accident Lawyers, focusing on motor vehicle accidents, commercial truck crashes, and product liability claims in Austin and throughout Texas. Read more about Travis S. Kelley.