SOUTH JORDAN, Utah — If you’ve been involved in an accident caused by a truck driver, you should be able to rely on the trucking company to fix your car. But if the company refuses to believe that its driver was at fault, right or wrong, it could refuse to pay your claim.
Craig Allen says he was pulled over behind a semi-truck and trailer in a South Jordan parking lot.
“Right to the side but about two meters behind him,” Allen said of his position.
The truck turned but obviously ran out of space. The driver put the car in reverse and Allen was unable to swerve and was crushed in the front of his car in nearly $1,200 in damage.
Now this accident happened in a busy parking lot. There were witnesses and a police report confirming the collision that day.
“Surprisingly, to my shock, they said I wasn’t even hit by their truck,” Allen said.
The trucking company said their truck did not cause the damage because their truck was higher than the amount of damage to Allen’s car. When his protests didn’t get him anywhere, he decided it was time to get Gephardt.
Let’s examine the reason for the rejection. The truck is too high? Well, the US Department of Transportation dictates how low trucks must be. These steel bars hanging from the truck bed are called the rear skid plate and must be “no more than 22 inches” off the ground.
Using a tape measure, we saw the damage on Allen’s car barrels between 20 and 22 inches, exactly in line with federal requirements for skid plates.
“But they say there’s no way because it’s too low?” I asked everyone.
“Right, they said it came from an earlier event and it happened much lower,” he replied.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Allen said. “That’s why I called you.”
So this time we contacted the CR England haulage company on his behalf and sent them my measurements and photos and asked how they found insufficient evidence that their truck did the damage. Just like that, they had a change of heart. In an email, a spokesman told us: “This claim is under review.”
And within hours, Allen received good news – CR England will pay him for this damage.
To save money, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration allows trucking companies to self-insure their trucks. This also gives them more control over how they process their claims, which can also save them money.
