KEY TAKEAWAYS
- A truck case is not a bigger car case. The carrier has a rapid-response team, a defense lawyer on retainer, and federal minimum coverage that starts at $750,000.
- The evidence that decides your case lives on the trucking company’s servers, and much of it has no federal retention requirement at all.
- Texas gives you two years to file suit. That deadline is not your real deadline — the evidence deadline comes first.
- After the Supreme Court’s 2026 decision in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, the freight broker who put the carrier on the road can also be on the hook.
If an 18-wheeler hit you in San Antonio, the first thing to understand is that you are not in a car accident claim. You are in a different kind of case, against a different kind of opponent, on a much shorter clock than anybody told you at the scene.
I-35 and I-10 are San Antonio’s principal interstate freight routes. Loop 410 and Loop 1604 carry substantial connecting and distribution traffic on top of that. The trucks moving through Bexar County on those roads belong to companies that have handled crashes before, and they have a plan for the first 72 hours. Most injured people do not.
Here is what to do first, and why the order matters.
Get Treated, and Keep Going
Emergency rooms are built to rule out the things that kill you tonight. They are not built to document a disc injury, a shoulder tear, or a mild traumatic brain injury. Plenty of people walk out of an ER with a clean CT scan and a prescription for muscle relaxers, then wake up three days later unable to turn their head.
Go to the ER if you need it. Then follow up with a doctor who will actually work up what is wrong, and keep the appointments. Gaps in treatment are the single most common thing a defense adjuster uses to argue you were not really hurt.
Do Not Give a Recorded Statement
If a trucking company’s adjuster is calling you in the first week, that is not customer service. That is an investigation.
You are under no obligation to give a recorded statement to the other side’s insurance company. Those calls are not neutral. The questions are built to lock you into a version of events before you have the police report, before you know the full extent of your injuries, and before anyone has looked at the truck’s data.
Texas uses modified comparative responsibility. If a jury assigns you more than 50% of the fault, you recover nothing. Everything below that reduces your recovery proportionally. A recorded statement is where a defense lawyer starts building your percentage.
Understand What Evidence Is About to Disappear
This is the part almost nobody knows, and it is the reason calling a lawyer early actually matters in a truck case.
Federal regulations do require carriers to keep certain records:
- Records of duty status — the driver’s hours-of-service logs, including electronic logging device data, plus supporting documents. Carriers must keep these for at least six months. 49 C.F.R. § 395.8(k).
- The driver qualification file — the driver’s application, employment history, road test, and medical certification. Kept for the duration of employment plus three years. 49 C.F.R. § 391.51.
- The accident register — a running log of the carrier’s crashes. Kept three years. 49 C.F.R. § 390.15.
Now the part that surprises people. There is no general federal regulation setting a retention period for the truck’s engine control module data or for dashcam footage. No rule says the carrier has to keep the black box download for six months, or six weeks, or six days.
That data — speed at impact, throttle position, whether the driver ever hit the brakes, hard-braking events in the minutes before — is often the most important evidence in the case. And it can be overwritten in the normal course of operating the truck, or lost outright when the tractor goes in for repair.
The duty to preserve it comes from somewhere else: common-law spoliation principles, discovery rules, and a written litigation hold. Which is why the first letter we send in a truck case is not to the adjuster. It is a preservation letter to the carrier, in writing, demanding they hold the ECM data, the ELD records, the dispatch logs, the driver qualification file, and any video.
If nobody sends that letter, and the data is gone, Texas courts do not simply hand you a free win. Under Brookshire Brothers, Ltd. v. Aldridge, 438 S.W.3d 9 (Tex. 2014), the judge — not the jury — decides whether spoliation occurred and what remedy fits. A spoliation instruction to the jury is generally reserved for intentional destruction or concealment. Negligent loss justifies an instruction only in narrow circumstances. In other words: getting the evidence preserved is worth far more than arguing about it after it is gone.
Know Who Can Actually Be Held Liable
In a car wreck there is usually one at-fault driver and one insurance policy. In a truck case the chain is longer, and more than one link can be responsible:
- The driver, for how the truck was operated.
- The motor carrier, both for the driver’s conduct and for its own negligence — hiring, training, supervision, maintenance, and dispatch pressure.
- The freight broker, where the broker selected an unsafe carrier.
- The shipper or the loading company, where the load was improperly secured or overweight.
- A maintenance contractor, where a brake or tire failure traces back to bad work.
The broker piece changed materially last year. On May 14, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, 608 U.S. ___ (2026), that the FAAAA does not preempt state negligent-selection claims against freight brokers when the theory of liability concerns motor vehicle safety. Brokers arrange a large share of the freight on American highways, and for years many of them treated federal preemption as a shield. That shield is gone for safety-based claims. We wrote about what the ruling means for Texas families here.
None of this is automatic. Naming a broker or a shipper does not create liability — you still have to prove the elements of negligence under Texas law, including proximate cause. But it means the investigation has to look past the driver, and it has to start early enough that the records still exist.
The Insurance Is Bigger, Which Is Why They Fight Harder
A for-hire interstate carrier hauling general freight in a vehicle over 10,001 pounds must carry at least $750,000 in public liability coverage. 49 C.F.R. § 387.9. Carriers hauling most listed hazardous materials must carry at least $1 million, and certain heightened-risk materials require $5 million.
That is not a bonus. It is the reason a commercial carrier’s defense looks nothing like a personal auto claim. When the exposure is that size, the carrier sends investigators to the scene, retains counsel immediately, and litigates hard. Understand that going in.
On damages, Texas generally does not cap pain-and-suffering or other noneconomic damages in an ordinary truck-accident negligence case. Different statutory limits apply to health care liability claims under Chapter 74 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, but that is a separate category and it is not your truck case.
The Deadlines
Texas gives you two years from the date of injury to file a personal injury lawsuit, and two years from the date of death in a wrongful death case. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003.
A Bexar County civil suit is filed in the district courts at the Bexar County Courthouse, 100 Dolorosa in downtown San Antonio.
But treat the two-year deadline as the outer wall, not the plan. The records that decide the case run on their own clocks, and some of those clocks are measured in weeks.
Talk to Someone Before the Adjuster Talks to You
Patterson Law Group has an office at 926 Chulie Drive in San Antonio, along with offices in Fort Worth and Arlington. We have been trying injury cases in Texas for 30 years and have recovered over $100 million for injured Texans.
If an 18-wheeler hit you or someone in your family in Bexar County, talk to a San Antonio truck accident lawyer before you give a statement to anyone. The consultation is free, we answer 24/7, and you owe nothing unless we win.
Free Consultation — Call (817) 784-2000
Frequently Asked Questions
How long do I have to file a truck accident lawsuit in Texas?
Two years from the date of the injury, or two years from the date of death in a wrongful death claim. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003. Certain accrual doctrines and tolling rules can affect that, which is one more reason not to sit on a case.
Does the trucking company have to keep the black box data?
Not under any general FMCSA retention rule. Federal regulations set retention periods for hours-of-service records, driver qualification files, and the accident register — but not for engine control module downloads or dashcam video. Preservation of that evidence usually depends on a written demand and a litigation hold.
Can I still recover if I was partly at fault?
Yes, as long as your share of responsibility is 50% or less. At 51% or more you recover nothing under Texas’s modified comparative responsibility rule. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 33.001.
Can I sue the freight broker?
Sometimes. After Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II (2026), federal law no longer preempts state negligent-selection claims against brokers where the claim concerns motor vehicle safety. You still have to prove the broker was negligent in selecting the carrier and that it caused your injuries.
How much insurance does a trucking company carry?
At least $750,000 for interstate for-hire carriers hauling general freight, with higher minimums of $1 million or $5 million for various hazardous materials. 49 C.F.R. § 387.9.