What Should You Do After a Truck Accident in Georgia?

We are Flanagan Law, P.C., Atlanta truck accident lawyers who handle serious crashes involving commercial and delivery trucks. If a semi-truck or delivery van hit you, you may be hurting and already fielding calls from an adjuster.

Acting quickly matters, because the trucking company may only have to keep some records for a few months. The checklist below runs in the order you will face each step, from the scene to the filing deadlines.

What Should You Do at the Scene of a Truck Accident?

At the scene of a truck accident, stay safe, get help, make sure the police are notified and record who runs the truck.

1. Get to Safety and Call 911

Call 911 if anyone is hurt. Georgia law requires every driver in a crash to stop, stay at the scene, share a name, address and vehicle registration number, and give reasonable help to anyone injured.

Turn on your hazard lights, set out reflective triangles if you have them, and do not move an injured person unless it is absolutely necessary.

If no one seems seriously hurt and your car can be driven without a tow, Georgia law asks drivers to move to the shoulder or median. Moving your car there does not by itself make you at fault.

2. Make Sure the Police Are Notified of the Truck Crash

Georgia requires immediate notice to police, by the quickest means available, after any crash that causes injury, death or apparent property damage of $500 or more. Inside city limits, notice goes to the local police department; outside them, it goes to the county sheriff or the nearest State Patrol office.

If a truck hit you and drove off, report the hit-and-run right away. Georgia’s uninsured motorist law requires a prompt report before you can recover from an unknown driver, and a Georgia court has ruled that four or five days later is not immediate.

When the truck never touched your car, Georgia waives the physical contact requirement only if an eyewitness other than you backs up your account.

3. Write Down the Trucking Company’s Name and USDOT Number

Record the trucking company’s name and U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) number, which federal rules require on both sides of the truck. Photograph both sides of the cab, along with the trailer and its plate.

Check for an “operated by” line as well. When another company’s name appears on a truck, federal rules require the company actually running it to be named after those words.

Delivery trucks raise this question often, so we wrote guides on what happens if a FedEx truck hits you and what to do if an Amazon truck hits your car.

Later, you can search the USDOT number or company name for free in the federal SAFER Company Snapshot, which shows any safety rating, roadside out-of-service inspections and crash information.

4. Photograph the Truck Accident Scene and Look for Cameras

Take pictures of the vehicles, the road, debris and your injuries before the scene is cleared, and get contact details from any witness, doing only what your injuries allow. Note any cameras on nearby businesses or on the truck itself.

Our guide on whether delivery trucks have cameras covers that question, and our steps to take after a car accident cover the general scene basics.

What Should You Do in the First Few Days After a Truck Accident?

In the first few days after a truck accident, see a doctor, get the crash report, handle insurance calls carefully and keep records of your losses.

5. Get Checked by a Doctor After a Truck Accident, Even If You Feel Fine

See a doctor even if you feel fine, because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says some concussion symptoms may not appear for hours or days.

Get emergency care at a hospital for a headache that gets worse and does not go away, for slurred speech or unusual behavior, or for anyone who loses consciousness, looks very drowsy or cannot be woken up.

In the delivery truck case described below, our client declined the ambulance to care for his son and went to the emergency room the next day. Our guide to common truck accident injuries has more.

6. Get a Copy of the Truck Accident Report

The place to get your crash report depends on which agency worked the crash, and the fees and timelines below were current at the time of writing.

• Georgia State Patrol: Request it online any time through EPORTS, or contact a local State Patrol post or the Department of Public Safety’s Open Records Unit. Reports are generally ready in three to five business days, longer for serious or multi-vehicle crashes.
• Atlanta Police: Order online at buycrash.com with the report number and the last name of someone involved. Reports generally take up to seven business days, and the fee was $11.
• Gwinnett County Police: Reports are typically ready for pickup four business days after they are taken, for $5.
• Other agencies: The Department of Public Safety directs other requests to the Georgia Department of Transportation’s Crash Reporting Unit, which takes mail or fax requests at $5 per report, paid by money order or cashier’s check.

Our guide on how to get a police report covers the process in more detail.

7. Be Careful When the Insurance Companies Call

Call your own insurance company first, and leave the trucking company’s insurer to your lawyer. Georgia lets you claim under your own physical damage coverage even if someone else caused the crash, and optional medical payments, rental car reimbursement or uninsured motorist coverage may also help.

Truck accidents also differ from car accidents in the insurance behind them. Georgia drivers must carry at least $25,000 per person and $50,000 per crash in bodily injury coverage, while federal rules set a $750,000 minimum for for-hire interstate trucking companies hauling non-hazardous freight in trucks rated 10,001 pounds or more.

Delivery trucks and commercial vehicles carry bigger policies than ordinary drivers, and their insurers fight harder to protect them. Do not give the trucking company’s insurance company a statement, and do not accept an offer, before you talk to a truck accident lawyer.

8. Keep Records of Bills, Missed Work and Symptoms

Start a simple file now that tracks what the crash has cost you, because those records back up any claim for compensation:

• Medical records, bills and prescription receipts
• Repair estimates, plus receipts for a rental car or mobility aids
• Pay stubs or employer notes showing missed work and lost income
• A short daily note on pain, sleep and tasks you can no longer do

What Evidence Does the Trucking Company Control, and How Long Does It Have to Keep It?

The trucking company controls nearly all the proof of what happened, and federal rules may only require it to keep a record for months or a few years. The periods below are federal minimums, and a company may keep records longer.

9. Get a Preservation Demand to the Trucking Company Right Away

A preservation demand is a written notice telling the trucking company to keep the truck, its data and its records, and it should go out as soon as possible. Losing or destroying evidence that should have been kept is called spoliation.

The Georgia Supreme Court has held that the duty to preserve begins once a lawsuit is reasonably foreseeable to the company holding the evidence, even before one is filed. When evidence is lost, a court may presume it would have hurt the side that lost it.

We saw the stakes in Nguyen v. TIAG, a fatal tractor-trailer case. The truck was scrapped before our side could inspect it, the airbag control module was taken from the victim’s car and never seen again, and the driver claimed his required onboard camera was unplugged.

In a 27-page spoliation order, the court found the trucking company had a duty to preserve the truck, dash camera data, the driver’s hours-of-service logbooks and the airbag control module, and that it failed to meet that duty.

What Deadlines and Fault Rules Apply to Truck Accidents in Georgia?

Georgia generally allows two years to file a truck accident lawsuit, with shorter notice deadlines for government trucks and limits tied to your own share of fault.

The Two-Year Statute of Limitations, and Shorter Deadlines for Government Trucks

Georgia’s statute of limitations generally gives you two years to file most injury lawsuits, and four years for loss of consortium claims. If a government truck hit you, written notice is due much sooner:

• City-owned truck: a written claim to the city within 6 months
• County-owned truck: a claim to the county within 12 months
• State-owned truck: written notice to the state’s Risk Management Division within 12 months of discovering the loss

How Fault Is Shared in a Truck Crash

Georgia reduces your damages by your share of fault and bars recovery if you are 50 percent or more responsible. The judge or jury weighs the fault of everyone who contributed, even people outside the lawsuit.

Georgia law also bars following another vehicle more closely than is reasonable and prudent, a rule that matters when a truck hits you from behind.

A Delivery Truck Case We Handled

Another attorney referred this delivery truck case to us for litigation. By the truck driver’s own account, his truck was not stopping when he braked, so he swerved into the guardrail, came back onto the road and rear-ended our client, forcing our client’s car into a ditch. The officer cited the delivery truck driver for following too closely.

After the emergency room, our client went through injections, radiofrequency ablation and, eventually, cervical spine surgery. He had neck trouble years earlier, but he was pain free before this crash, had never needed surgery, and every treating physician tied his condition to this crash.

The delivery company’s insurer carried a $1 million policy, and we recovered all of it. Brendan C. Flanagan served as trial attorney on the case, in Gwinnett County in 2024. Read about the $1 million delivery truck settlement.

Past results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future case.

Questions About What to Do After a Truck Accident

Can You Get the State Trooper’s Dash Camera Video?

Yes, you can request the state trooper’s dash camera video if the Georgia State Patrol worked the crash. The Department of Public Safety takes requests for dash camera video through its Open Records Request Form, and Georgia law does not require redacting it.

What Should You Not Say to the Insurance Adjuster After a Truck Accident?

Do not give the trucking company’s insurance adjuster a statement or accept an offer before you talk to a lawyer. Avoid guessing about fault or your injuries, since you may not know the full picture yet.

Do You Need a Lawyer After a Truck Accident?

Hiring a personal injury lawyer after a truck accident is your decision, but after a fatal truck crash, the trucking company and its insurance company can have investigators and defense lawyers working within days. A lawyer can send the preservation demand and handle the insurance calls while you heal, and there is no fee unless we win.

Related Guides

• Commercial truck accident settlements
• How long it takes to settle an 18-wheeler accident
• What a truck accident lawyer does