I was hit by an 18-wheeler on I-10. What should I do first?

First, and it is not close: get evaluated and keep treating

A collision with a loaded tractor-trailer is a different physical event from a car wreck. Mass differences of twenty to one are routine, and the injuries that matter — internal bleeding, closed head injury, a disc that has not declared itself yet — frequently do not hurt at the scene. Adrenaline lasts hours. Some of these injuries kill people who walked away.

Get evaluated the same day, tell the provider it was a commercial vehicle collision, and keep every follow-up appointment. Everything else on this page is worth less than that sentence.

Understand who you are up against, starting today

Within hours of a serious crash, many motor carriers dispatch a rapid response team: an investigator, sometimes an accident reconstructionist, sometimes defense counsel. They photograph the scene while the debris field is intact, download the tractor's electronic control module, interview the driver, and secure the truck. That is a professional, funded effort that begins before you are out of the emergency department.

None of it is improper. It is simply asymmetric, and the asymmetry is the reason speed matters on your side.

The retention clock is shorter than you think

Federal regulations tell you exactly how long the evidence has to exist — and the most important category has the shortest life.

A carrier must retain records of duty status and their supporting documents for six months. Six. The Texas deadline to file suit is two years. A driver's electronic logs, the dispatch records, the fuel receipts and the payroll settlement sheets can lawfully be gone long before anyone files anything — unless a preservation letter went out first.

Other categories last longer: the accident register is kept three years, the driver qualification file for the length of employment plus three years, maintenance and inspection records one year plus six months after the vehicle leaves the carrier's control, and drug and alcohol testing records on a tiered schedule up to five years. Onboard video and telematics follow no federal schedule at all — many systems overwrite in days.

A spoliation letter that identifies these categories specifically, and goes out in the first week, is the single highest-value thing that happens early in a truck case.

The post-crash drug test may never have happened

People assume a commercial driver is automatically tested. The federal rule is narrower, and the detail matters.

After a fatality, testing is required regardless of citation. After a crash involving bodily injury treated away from the scene, or a vehicle towed from the scene, testing is required only if the driver receives a citation for a moving violation. Alcohol testing is to occur within eight hours and controlled-substance testing within thirty-two.

So whether the officer wrote a citation at the roadside can determine whether a test exists at all. That is a reason to know exactly what the responding officer did, early enough to do something about it.

What is particular about I-10

I-10 is the corridor this firm actually works — it runs through El Paso along the border and through Houston as the Katy Freeway to the west and the East Freeway out past Channelview and Baytown. It is also one of the heaviest freight routes in North America, carrying port traffic out of Houston and cross-border traffic through El Paso, which means a meaningful share of the trucks on it are running under interstate authority with federal minimum coverage of $750,000 rather than a Texas auto policy.

Two practical consequences. First, jurisdiction: most I-10 crashes are worked by DPS rather than by a city police department, and the interstate crosses county lines constantly — Harris, Chambers, Fort Bend, Waller, El Paso, Hudspeth. Which county you were in decides where suit is filed and which agency holds the report.

Second, the defendant may not be the company on the door. Tractor and trailer are often separately owned, the driver may be an owner-operator leased to a motor carrier, and freight brokers and shippers sit behind both. Sorting out who is responsible is its own piece of work, and it is where the available coverage is actually found.

What to do before you talk to anyone

The carrier's insurer will call, usually quickly and usually pleasantly. You are not required to give a recorded statement to the other side's insurer, and doing it early — while you are medicated, before you know the extent of your injuries, without the report — is how usable admissions get made. Get your own medical care, write down what you remember while it is fresh, photograph everything including your injuries as they develop, and get the evidence locked down before the six-month clock does its work.

Authority: 49 CFR 395.8 (records of duty status; retention) · 49 CFR 382.303 (post-accident testing) · 49 CFR 387.9 (minimum levels of financial responsibility)