Every vehicle crash is different. A rear-end collision on a city street raises different legal questions than an 18-wheeler wreck on the interstate or a collision caused by a drunk driver.
Continue reading to learn more about the difference types of vehicle accidents, and how they may effect your legal rights. If you have been injured in these or other types of accidents, you may be eligible to file a lawsuit and receive compensation.
Our law firm, Hissey Mulderig & Friend represents injury victims across the full range of Texas motor vehicle accidents. Find out whether you are eligible to file a claim by calling our law office toll-free at 1-866-806-8117, or send us a message using the free claims submission form on the right side of this page.
Car Accidents
Passenger vehicle collisions are the most common accident claims in Texas, and they take many forms: rear-end impacts, T-bone collisions at intersections, head-on crashes, sideswipes during lane changes, and multi-vehicle pileups on congested highways.
Most of them trace back to driver negligence: speeding, following too closely, running red lights, or failing to yield.
Even a crash at moderate speed can leave occupants with lasting injuries, and fault is not always as obvious as it first appears. Establishing which driver violated the rules of the road, and proving it with physical evidence and witness accounts, is the foundation of every successful car accident claim.
Motorcycle Accidents
Motorcycle riders have no steel frame, airbags, or crumple zones between them and the pavement, so when a car or truck collides with a motorcycle, the rider almost always absorbs the worst of the collision.
A large share of these wrecks happen because a driver simply failed to see the motorcycle, such as turning left across a rider’s path or drifting into a lane the rider already occupied.
Motorcyclists also fight an unfair bias: insurance adjusters, and sometimes juries, assume riders are reckless by default. Overcoming that assumption requires a legal team that knows how to reconstruct the crash and put the focus back on the driver who caused it.
18-Wheeler & Trucking Accidents
Texas records more fatal large-truck crashes than any other state, a consequence of the freight corridors running along I-35, I-10, I-20, and I-45 between Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and the Gulf ports.
When a fully loaded tractor-trailer weighing up to 80,000 pounds strikes a passenger car, the physics are catastrophic for the smaller vehicle’s occupants.
Truck accident claims are also legally different from ordinary car wrecks. The trucking company — not just the driver — can be held responsible, and federal motor carrier regulations govern how many hours a driver may spend behind the wheel, how cargo must be loaded and secured, and how the rig must be inspected and maintained.
Violations of those rules are common threads in serious truck crashes: fatigued drivers pushing past hours-of-service limits, poorly maintained brakes, and overloaded or shifting cargo.
Critical evidence — the truck’s electronic logging device, black box data, dispatch records, and driver qualification files — sits in the trucking company’s hands, and companies deploy rapid-response teams to accident scenes to begin building their defense within hours. Preserving that evidence quickly, before it is overwritten or lost, is often the difference between a strong claim and a contested one.
These cases typically involve commercial insurance policies far larger than personal auto coverage, and the insurers defending them fight accordingly.
Commercial Vehicle Accidents
Not every work vehicle on Texas roads is a tractor-trailer. Delivery vans, box trucks, utility and construction vehicles, company pickups, and buses crowd the same highways and neighborhood streets, driven by people on the clock and often under pressure to meet schedules. The rise of home delivery and ride-sharing apps like Uber and Lyft have multiplied these vehicles in residential areas, where they share space with pedestrians, cyclists, and children.
When an on-duty driver causes a crash, Texas law generally allows the injured victim to bring the claim against the employer as well, under a doctrine that makes businesses answer for their employees’ negligence on the job. A claim may also arise from the company’s own choices, such as putting an unqualified driver behind the wheel or skipping vehicle upkeep.
These cases raise questions an ordinary crash does not: Who owned the vehicle? Was the driver an employee or a contractor? Which of several business entities is the right defendant? Sorting that out early, before the company shapes the story, is a job for attorneys who handle these claims regularly.
Drunk Driving Accidents
Texas consistently ranks among the deadliest states in the nation for alcohol-related crashes, with drunk drivers killing more than a thousand people on Texas roads in a typical year.
Victims of intoxicated drivers have legal options that go beyond a standard negligence claim.Because driving while intoxicated is not mere carelessness but a conscious disregard for the safety of others, Texas juries may award punitive damages — compensation designed to punish the drunk driver rather than simply cover the victim’s losses.
Texas dram shop law adds another avenue: a bar, restaurant, or club that continued serving a customer who was obviously intoxicated can share liability for the harm that customer later causes behind the wheel. Pursuing a dram shop claim means investigating receipts, surveillance footage, and server testimony on a short timeline.
It is also important to know that the criminal DWI case against the driver and the victim’s civil injury claim are separate proceedings — a driver can be convicted, acquitted, or never charged at all, and the civil claim moves forward regardless, with a lower burden of proof.
Distracted Driving Accidents
Texting behind the wheel is illegal in Texas, yet distraction remains one of the state’s leading crash factors — nearly one in six Texas crashes involves a distracted driver.
A driver reading a message at highway speed travels the length of a football field with their eyes off the road.
Distraction rarely announces itself the way alcohol does, so proving it takes deliberate investigative work: subpoenaing the driver’s phone records, pulling app usage data, and locating witnesses who saw the driver looking down before impact.
When that proof comes together, a distracted driving case becomes one of the clearest liability stories a victim can present.
Hit-And-Run Accidents
A driver who flees the scene leaves the victim with injuries, a damaged vehicle, and no one to claim against — at least at first. Roughly one in five Texas drivers also carries no insurance, which compounds the problem when a fleeing driver is eventually identified.
Victims are not out of options: uninsured motorist (UM) coverage on the victim’s own policy can pay for injuries and damage caused by an unidentified or uninsured driver, and the crash investigation itself — traffic and doorbell camera footage, paint transfer evidence, partial plate numbers — sometimes locates the driver after the fact.
UM claims put victims in the unusual position of negotiating against their own insurance company, which owes them good faith but still works to limit what it pays. Legal representation matters just as much in these claims as in any other.
Hurt In Any Kind Of Texas Crash? Get Help From an Attorney.
Whatever form your accident took, the questions are the same: who was responsible, what is the claim worth, and how do you prove it?
Our law firm, Hissey Mulderig & Friend, has the resources to investigate every type of motor vehicle wreck, from a two-car collision to a multi-defendant commercial trucking case. A case review is free, and we only get paid if we win compensation for you.
Contact our lawyers to get help after a crash, find out whether you qualify, or start your claim by calling Hissey Mulderig & Friend toll-free at 1-866-806-8117, or sending us a message through the free contact form at the top of this page.