Being hit by a truck or a company vehicle is not like an ordinary car crash. The injuries are usually worse, and within days you are dealing with a company, its insurer and its investigators while the bills start arriving and nobody has told you what happens next.
Bonnici Law Group represents people hurt by commercial vehicles across San Diego County, and a San Diego commercial vehicle accident lawyer here starts with something most people never hear: the most important evidence in your case is a data file, and federal regulation lets the carrier delete it six months after it was created.
That single fact shapes the first weeks after a crash involving a truck, a delivery van, a box truck or a company vehicle. You have two years to file a lawsuit. The driver's electronic logs may not last half that long.
Call +1 (619) 259-5199 for a free case review.
Table of Contents
- Why Does a Commercial Vehicle Claim Move Faster Than a Car Claim?
- What Counts as a Commercial Vehicle in California?
- Who Can Be Held Responsible?
- How Do Federal Regulations Help Prove Negligence?
- How Much Insurance Do Commercial Carriers Carry?
- What Is Changing for Autonomous Commercial Vehicles?
- What Happens in the First Weeks of a Case?
- How Long Do I Have to File?
- What Does It Cost to Hire Us?
- Commercial Vehicle Accident Questions San Diego Clients Ask
- The Records Exist Right Now
Why Does a Commercial Vehicle Claim Move Faster Than a Car Claim?
Because the evidence has an expiration date written into federal law. Under 49 CFR 395.8(k), a motor carrier must retain records of duty status and supporting documents for not less than six months from receipt.
Six months is the floor, not a promise. After that, electronic logging device records, GPS and telematics data, dispatch records and supporting documents can be destroyed lawfully unless someone has sent a preservation letter.
Compare that to the two-year filing deadline in Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1. A person who spends a year recovering before calling a lawyer can arrive to find the most probative evidence in the case already gone, entirely legally.
| Evidence | Who holds it | How long it typically survives |
|---|---|---|
| Electronic logging device and duty status records | The carrier | 6 months minimum under federal rule |
| GPS and telematics data | Carrier or third-party provider | Varies by vendor contract, often months |
| Dashcam or in-cab video | Carrier | Frequently overwritten in days or weeks |
| Driver qualification file | The carrier | Retained, but access requires a claim |
| Maintenance and inspection records | The carrier | Retained, varies by record type |
| Vehicle event data recorder | Wherever the truck goes | Lost when the vehicle is repaired or sold |
| Post-crash drug and alcohol test results | The carrier | Retained, timing of the test matters |
A preservation letter sent in week two is worth more than a very good lawyer hired in month eight.
What Counts as a Commercial Vehicle in California?
More than tractor-trailers. Vehicle Code section 260 defines a commercial vehicle as one used or maintained for transporting people for hire or designed primarily for transporting property.
That reaches delivery vans, box trucks, flatbeds, service vehicles, shuttles and company-owned pickups being driven for work. Whether a commercial driver license was required is a separate question governed by Vehicle Code section 15210, which uses different criteria than section 260.
The practical significance is not the label. It is that a commercial vehicle usually comes attached to a company, a safety program, a set of records and a much larger insurance policy than a private driver carries.
Who Can Be Held Responsible?
The driver, and usually the company behind the driver. Under California law an employer is vicariously liable for an employee's negligence committed within the scope of employment.
Beyond the employer, a claim can reach a separate motor carrier, a broker, a shipper or loader whose work contributed, a maintenance contractor, or a vehicle or component manufacturer where equipment failed.
One thing most California truck accident pages get wrong
Nearly every one of them tells you that you can pursue negligent hiring, negligent training, negligent supervision and negligent entrustment against the company in addition to vicarious liability.
In California, that stops being true the moment the company admits the driver was working at the time. Under the California Supreme Court's decision in Diaz v. Carcamo, once an employer admits vicarious liability, direct negligence claims against the employer drop out and the evidence supporting them becomes inadmissible. A large verdict was reversed on exactly that ground.
Defense counsel knows this and makes the admission early, on purpose. Which theories survive in a given case depends on choices made in the first months, and our role is to evaluate that before it is decided for us.
How Do Federal Regulations Help Prove Negligence?
They set fixed standards a carrier either met or did not, which is easier to prove than a general argument about carelessness.
The hours of service rules in 49 CFR Part 395 limit a property-carrying driver to 11 hours of driving after 10 consecutive hours off duty, bar driving beyond the 14th consecutive hour after coming on duty, and cap driving at 60 hours in 7 days or 70 hours in 8 days.
The 30-minute break rule is the one most often misstated. It requires a break after 8 cumulative hours of driving time, not 8 hours on duty, and it can be satisfied by any non-driving status. Content describing the older version of this rule is describing a rule that changed in 2020.
Other regulatory failures that show up repeatedly: inadequate pre-trip inspections, deferred brake maintenance, improper cargo securement, and putting a driver behind the wheel whose qualification file should have disqualified him.
If a commercial vehicle was involved in your crash, one call can tell you what needs to be preserved and who has it. Call +1 (619) 259-5199 for a free case review.
How Much Insurance Do Commercial Carriers Carry?
More than a private driver, and the common figure quoted online comes with three qualifiers nobody mentions.
Under 49 CFR Part 387, the $750,000 minimum applies only to for-hire carriers in interstate commerce, operating vehicles with a gross vehicle weight rating of 10,001 pounds or more, hauling non-hazardous property.
Carriers hauling oil or listed hazardous materials must carry $1,000,000, and certain bulk hazardous loads require $5,000,000. Passenger carriers seating 16 or more require $5,000,000.
All of those are regulatory floors, not policy limits. Most real carriers carry a primary policy well above the minimum plus excess layers, and treating the federal minimum as a ceiling on recovery is a misunderstanding that costs claimants money.
What Is Changing for Autonomous Commercial Vehicles?
California lifted its prohibition on heavy-duty autonomous vehicles in April 2026. The DMV's autonomous vehicle regulations now authorize testing and deployment of autonomous trucks at 10,001 pounds and above, phased through a permit progression with mileage requirements at each stage.
The regulations also create reporting obligations that do not exist for conventional trucks, covering system failures, vehicle immobilizations, hard braking events and expanded collision data.
No California statute allocates liability for an autonomous truck collision. What the new framework does provide is a discoverable evidence trail, and in a case involving an automated vehicle that trail is where the answer lives.
What Happens in the First Weeks of a Case?
The work is mostly about locking things down before anyone is arguing about fault.
Identify the carrier and the operating authority. A truck can be owned by one company, operated under another company's authority and driven by a third party's employee. Federal registration records make this traceable, and it determines who receives the preservation letter.
Send the spoliation letter. This is a formal notice instructing the carrier to preserve logs, telematics, video, maintenance records, the driver qualification file, dispatch records and the vehicle itself. It does not require filing a lawsuit. It converts a six-month regulatory retention floor into a legal obligation to keep the material, and failing to comply carries consequences at trial.
Get to the vehicle. A commercial vehicle's event data recorder holds speed, braking and engine data from before the impact. That evidence disappears when the truck is repaired and returned to service, which for a working carrier is a matter of urgency rather than months.
Expect the rapid response team. Large carriers dispatch investigators, and sometimes counsel, to serious crashes within hours. By the time an injured person leaves the hospital, the other side often has photographs, measurements and statements. That gap is closable, and it closes faster when someone starts early.
Pull the public safety record. Federal inspection and violation history is publicly searchable by carrier, and a pattern of hours of service or maintenance violations before your crash changes the complexion of a claim considerably.
How Long Do I Have to File?
Two years from the crash to file a lawsuit under section 335.1.
Six months to present a written claim if a public entity contributed, such as a municipal or transit vehicle or a roadway condition, under Government Code section 911.2. After the agency rejects that claim, a separate six months to file suit.
And the six month federal records floor above, which is the deadline that actually governs how strong the case can be.
What a commercial vehicle claim can cover
Medical treatment already received and treatment reasonably ahead, which in a heavy vehicle crash often means orthopedic surgery, spinal treatment or a brain injury rather than soft tissue care. Income lost during recovery and reduced earning capacity. Physical pain and the disruption to ordinary life. Property damage, and where a family member was killed, the losses a wrongful death claim covers.
Because carriers usually carry coverage well above the federal floor, these cases are less often limited by available insurance than by how well the underlying conduct was documented.
What Does It Cost to Hire Us?
Nothing upfront. Commercial vehicle cases are handled on contingency, with no fee unless there is a recovery, and the case review is free.
Josh Bonnici is the managing attorney and stays on the file. You deal with your attorney rather than with a rotating file handler, which in a case that turns on records requests and preservation timing is a practical advantage rather than a talking point.
Commercial Vehicle Accident Questions San Diego Clients Ask
The company already called me and seems helpful. Is that normal?
It is standard practice, and it is not hostile so much as it is procedural. Carriers dispatch rapid response teams to serious crashes, sometimes within hours, and that team's job is to document the scene in the carrier's favor and obtain a recorded statement before the injured person knows the extent of their injuries. Be courteous and decline the recorded statement until you have advice.
The truck had an out-of-state plate. Does that change anything?
It usually means federal regulations apply in full, which generally helps a claim rather than complicating it. Interstate carriers must be registered, insured to federal minimums and compliant with hours of service and maintenance rules, and their safety records are publicly searchable. It can affect where a case is filed, which is something to sort out early.
What if the driver was an owner-operator rather than an employee?
The analysis expands rather than narrows. Owner-operators typically haul under another carrier's operating authority, and federal rules can make that carrier responsible for the vehicle's operation regardless of the contract label. Written agreements between the parties matter and are obtained through the claim.
The vehicle that hit me was a delivery van, not a semi. Same rules?
Partly. Many federal rules turn on weight thresholds a delivery van may not meet, so hours of service and federal insurance minimums may not apply. The vicarious liability analysis against the employer is the same, and the company's own routing, scheduling and safety practices become the center of the case instead.
How soon do I need to do something?
Weeks, not months. The preservation letter is the first step and it does not require a lawsuit or a decision to sue. It only requires knowing which carrier to send it to.
The Records Exist Right Now
Somewhere there is a log file showing how long that driver had been behind the wheel, a maintenance record showing whether a brake issue was deferred, and a dispatch entry showing what the company was asking of him that day.
Those documents are sitting on a server, and the rule that requires keeping them runs out in six months.
Bonnici Law Group handles commercial vehicle cases in San Diego County. The first call is free, the case review costs nothing, and if we take the case there is no fee unless we recover. Your attorney stays directly reachable for the life of the case, while the team runs the records requests. Don't hire a lawyer. Hire a team.
Call +1 (619) 259-5199. Our office is at 1620 5th Avenue, Suite 625, San Diego, CA 92101.