The First 72 Hours After a Truck Crash

Published by Garden State Circle — Tiffany and Jake Slowinski · Somerville and Hillsborough

By Tiffany Slowinski

We’ve all driven down the highway and felt that familiar frustration when traffic comes to a halt. We check the clock, think about where we need to be and wonder what’s taking so long. Then we inch farther down the road and see the flashing lights, a tractor-trailer stopped across the lanes, a car badly damaged beside it. Suddenly, our frustration feels small. We’re worried about being late. Someone up ahead is having a far worse day than ours.

Eventually, traffic begins moving again, and we continue on our way. For the people involved in the crash, the next few hours may mean an ambulance ride, emergency treatment and frantic calls from family members trying to find out what happened. Their attention is on the injuries, the doctors and what comes next.

Meanwhile, back at the scene, the trucking company may already be investigating. Tyler J. Hall, a partner at RAM Law in Somerville, New Jersey, says investigators, experts and attorneys can arrive within minutes or hours, interviewing witnesses while the injured person is still receiving care.

Hall focuses his practice on truck and bus crash litigation and is board-certified in truck accident law by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. We spoke with him about what injured people and their families should understand about the first 72 hours after a crash, when decisions about preserving evidence can have consequences long after the road has reopened.

It may feel too soon to think about an investigation when a family is still waiting for news from the hospital. Those first 72 hours, however, are a critical time to preserve evidence that could explain what happened. Sometimes a truck is repaired and returned to the road within hours. Electronic data can be overwritten. Once that evidence is gone, there may be no way to get it back.

Handling calls from the trucking company insurer

The phone may ring before a family has had much time to absorb what happened. A request for a statement can feel urgent, especially when someone is worried about medical bills, missed work and how long recovery might take.

Hall’s advice about the trucking company’s insurance adjuster is direct: the injured person should not speak with that adjuster. According to Hall, the injured person only has to speak with their own insurer.

“There is nothing good that comes out of it.” “The insurance companies play on people’s fear of time.”

Hall encourages families to speak with several attorneys before deciding whom to hire, saying there is “plenty of time” for those conversations. An adjuster’s request for a statement should not dictate that choice. The need to preserve evidence remains urgent.

Preserving evidence after a truck crash

The trucking company’s early response can influence the account of fault, Hall says, including what eventually appears in a police report. The injured person may have no comparable team at the scene. Hall describes the first week as often the most anxious part of his work on a case because “sometimes we’re the last ones in.”

Once he is hired, protecting the evidence becomes an immediate priority.

“The very first thing, same hour that we’re hired, we get the preservation letter out,” Hall says.

The letter goes to the driver, the trucking company and the New Jersey designated agent for service of process. Hall sends it by certified mail and may also have it served personally or delivered by email. It identifies what must be kept, including the truck, the driver’s qualification file, the electronic logging device, video cameras, load documents, the trailer and the chassis.

That level of detail matters if something later disappears. Hall says judges have told him that a broad instruction to preserve everything is not enough. A request that names the evidence makes it easier to establish what the company was asked to retain. Without that specificity, it becomes harder to hold someone responsible for losing or destroying a particular item.

When the truck returns to the road

At the hospital, a family may still be waiting to understand the extent of an injury. The truck involved in the crash could already be heading back to work.

Hall says a truck can be repaired and returned to service on the day of a crash. In his experience, putting it back on the road is the most common way important evidence disappears. Repairs can alter its physical condition, and continued operation can change the electronic information available to investigators.

Engine data is a particular concern. In certain trucks, he says, a hard-brake event can erase crash data. “All they have to do is jam on their brakes and the whole system resets itself.”

Hall describes engine data as the easiest evidence for a trucking company to make disappear. Preserving it requires attention before the truck’s ordinary use changes what can be recovered.

Dash-camera video may survive in a different place. Hall says most modern systems, often required by insurers, upload footage to the cloud. He has seen cameras removed, but taking a device out of the cab does not necessarily eliminate the recording. A copy may still exist elsewhere.

That is why his requests identify video systems specifically. An attorney needs to consider where the footage is stored, rather than assuming the camera is the only place it can be found. Across the vehicle, its records and its electronic systems, the concern is the same: preserving what exists before repairs or routine business activity changes it.

When preserving evidence requires a lawsuit

For a family dealing with catastrophic injury or a death, a lawsuit may seem like something to consider much later. Hall says RAM Law may file one specifically to preserve evidence, seeking to bring the driver, trucking company and insurer before a judge quickly.

That can happen within about a week and, in some cases, as soon as a day after the firm is hired. The purpose is to obtain court involvement when the stakes are high and the evidence may be vulnerable.

Hall distinguishes that immediate work from the two-year statute of limitations he says still applies to filing a case. The filing deadline does not prevent a truck from being repaired, digital information from being overwritten or altered through ordinary use, or witnesses’ memories from changing. The earliest records and accounts are taking shape long before a case reaches a courtroom.

“The first month of a truck crash case is the most important,” Hall says.

A family may still be waiting for a diagnosis or trying to understand what recovery will involve when evidence begins to disappear. Preserving it cannot always wait until those questions are answered.

By then, the highway may have reopened, and those of us who passed the flashing lights have continued on our way. For the injured person and their family, understanding what happened can take much longer. The work done in those first hours can help preserve the answers they will need.

For readers comparing local legal resources, see our guides to Personal Injury Lawyers in Somerset County, Middlesex County and Monmouth County.

Learn more about RAM Law at ramlawnj.com.

This article provides general information and is not legal advice.

About This Article

Garden State Circle interviewed Tyler Hall, a partner at RAM Law, Somerville, in October 2026. Details may change; confirm with the business.

RAM Law is a member of the Garden State Circle, which verifies its members’ information and publishes features about them. How the Circle works.

This article is produced by Garden State Circle and is part of our local guides to personal injury lawyers in Somerset County, Middlesex County and Monmouth County.

This article is maintained. If anything here is wrong or has changed — a name, an address, hours, or whether a business has closed — tell us and we will check it. Businesses named here are welcome to write in directly. admin@gardenstatecircle.com