The Rules a Trucking Company Agrees To, in Plain English
A motor carrier does not get to put an 80,000-pound vehicle on a public highway for profit without making promises. The federal motor carrier safety regulations are those promises, written down. Part 395 limits how long a driver can stay behind the wheel, because fatigue kills. Part 391 requires qualified, licensed, medically fit drivers. Part 382 requires drug and alcohol testing. Part 396 requires the truck itself, brakes, tires, lights, to be systematically inspected and maintained.
When a fatal crash traces back to a broken promise, a driver pushed past his hours, a carrier that never checked a driving record, a brake defect logged and ignored, that violation becomes the spine of the case. And when the company knew about the risk and ran the load anyway, Chapter 41 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code allows exemplary damages: damages meant to punish, on top of what compensates your family.
Two claims, not one
Texas law creates two separate claims when negligence kills: the family’s wrongful death claim and the estate’s survival claim. Building both, correctly, is the difference between partial justice and full accountability. We explain the structure in plain English in Survival Claims vs. Wrongful Death Claims in Texas and Who Can File a Wrongful Death Claim in Texas.
The defendants are rarely just the driver
The driver is usually the least of it. The motor carrier answers for its driver and for its own choices: hiring, training, dispatch, maintenance. The freight broker that selected the carrier can answer for a negligent selection; the U.S. Supreme Court held unanimously in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC (May 14, 2026) that federal law does not shield brokers from those claims. Shippers can answer for dangerous loading. Sorting out every responsible company is early, essential work.
How We Prove It
A preservation demand goes out immediately, putting the carrier on notice that destroying evidence has consequences. Then we take the case apart with the company’s own paper: the engine control module download, the driver’s logs checked against fuel receipts, tolls, and GPS pings, the dispatch messages that show what the company demanded, the driver qualification file, the drug and alcohol testing history, the maintenance records, and the carrier’s federal safety data. We dig until the other side’s own documents tell the story. Then we prepare the case for a jury; the full method is on our Truck Accidents page.
Go Deeper
The hub — the two-claim structure, gross negligence, and how we prepare these cases for trial.
Wrongful DeathOur full trucking practice — black-box data, carriers, brokers, and the federal rules.
Truck AccidentsTwo claims, two sets of losses, explained.
Survival ClaimsThe three groups the statute names.
Who Can FileDeaths offshore or on the water follow federal law — Jones Act and Death on the High Seas Act claims are covered in our maritime practice.
Maritime Wrongful Death
