Truck Accident Attorney

Collisions involving large trucks or commercial vehicles often lead to complex legal challenges and serious injuries. Whether you were hit by an 18-wheeler, a delivery truck, or another large vehicle, Flahavan Law has the experience to hold the responsible parties accountable. We’ll help you understand your rights and fight for the recovery you need. Contact us today or continue reading to learn how we can support your case.

Truck Accident Lawyer in Rohnert Park

When a fully loaded 80,000-pound tractor-trailer collides with a passenger vehicle on Hwy 101 or one of Rohnert Park’s busy surface streets, the outcome is rarely minor. Trucks traveling through Sonoma County’s 101 corridor can turn a routine commute into a life-altering tragedy in an instant. At Flahavan Law Offices in Santa Rosa, Brian Flahavan and his team have spent more than 20 years holding negligent trucking companies, drivers, and insurers fully accountable for the devastation they cause. We have recovered millions of dollars for victims and families in Sonoma, Lake, and Mendocino Counties, including multiple seven-figure settlements against national trucking carriers and complex cases involving disputed liability, serious injuries, and commercial policy limits.

If you or someone you love has been injured or killed in a truck accident in or around Rohnert Park, Cotati, Petaluma, or anywhere along the Hwy 101 corridor, you need a lawyer who understands both the physics of these catastrophic crashes and the corporate games that follow. Call us today for a free, no-obligation consultation. You pay nothing unless we win.

Why Truck Accidents in Rohnert Park Are So Deadly

Hwy 101 through Rohnert Park is one of Northern California’s most heavily traveled freight corridors. Every day, thousands of big rigs, box trucks, Amazon vans, FedEx step vans, gravel haulers, and flatbeds move goods between the Bay Area and the Oregon border. The stretch from Santa Rosa to Petaluma routinely ranks among the state’s top 10 most congested truck routes. The section near Rohnert Park Expressway and Golf Course Drive is particularly treacherous because of sharp on-ramp merges, heavy commuter traffic, and frequent lane-shifting by trucks trying to beat slowdowns.

The physics are unforgiving:

• A loaded semi traveling 65 mph needs up to 525 feet, almost two football fields, to stop on dry pavement.
• Underride crashes (when a car slides under a trailer) often decapitate or crush occupants.
• Jackknife and rollover incidents on the sweeping curves near the Rohnert Park Expressway scatter debris across all lanes and can ignite fuel fires.
• High centers of gravity make trucks prone to tipping when drivers overcorrect on wet pavement or during sudden evasive maneuvers.

In 2024, large trucks were involved in 537 fatal crashes and over 4,200 injury crashes statewide. Sonoma County sees multiple fatal truck collisions every year, many concentrated right here in the Rohnert Park–Cotati–Petaluma triangle.

High-Risk Truck Zones in and Around Rohnert Park

• Northbound 101 at the Rohnert Park Expressway on-ramp: frequent rear-end and unsafe-merge crashes as trucks accelerate from a dead stop.
• Southbound 101 just north of the Railroad Avenue overpass: steep downhill grade + heavy braking = frequent jackknife and runaway-truck incidents.
• Redwood Drive and Commerce Boulevard: delivery trucks pulling out of Target, Walmart, and Costco without yielding.
• Stony Point Road south of town: overloaded gravel trucks and agricultural haulers on narrow, winding two-lane roads with no shoulder.
• Wilfred Avenue and the business parks: Amazon Prime vans, UPS, and FedEx trucks making rapid left turns across traffic.
• The “Cotati Crawl” between Cannery Drive and Gravenstein Highway: stop-and-go traffic where distracted truckers rear-end passenger cars.

Common Causes of Truck Accidents in the Rohnert Park Area

1. Driver fatigue: Falsified electronic logbooks and pressure to meet impossible delivery windows.
2. Speeding or driving too fast for conditions: Especially on rain-slicked 101.
3. Distracted driving: Texting, eating, adjusting dash-mounted tablets.
4. Impaired driving: Alcohol, methamphetamine, cocaine, and prescription opioids.
5. Improper maintenance: Bald tires, faulty brakes, broken glad-hand connectors.
6. Overloaded or improperly secured cargo: Shifting lumber, gravel, or containers causing rollovers.
7. Aggressive maneuvers: Tailgating, unsafe lane changes, and “squeezing” smaller vehicles.

The Hidden Complexity: Multiple Layers of Liability

Unlike regular car accidents, truck cases rarely involve just one at-fault party. Potential defendants include:

• The driver (negligent or impaired)
• The motor carrier/trucking company (vicarious liability + negligent hiring, training, or retention)
• The freight broker who hired an unqualified carrier
• The shipper who overloaded the trailer
• The trailer owner or leasing company (separate from the tractor)
• The maintenance contractor who skipped brake inspections
• The truck or parts manufacturer (defective equipment)

Trucking companies carry massive commercial policies, $1 million is the federal minimum, but many have $5–$50 million or more, and they deploy rapid-response teams (sometimes called “accident cleanup crews”) that arrive at the scene within hours to photograph, measure, and “preserve” evidence while quietly destroying anything incriminating. Their goal: pin 100% of the blame on a disposable driver while shielding the corporation that created the unsafe conditions.

At Flahavan Law, we refuse to let them get away with it. We send our own investigators and former CHP officers to the scene immediately.

How We Build and Win Truck Accident Cases

We move faster and dig deeper than the trucking company’s team:

1. Immediate scene preservation: Drone photography, 3D laser scanning, and debris mapping before Caltrans sweeps the highway.
2. Black-box (ECM/EDR) download: Shows speed, braking, clutch use, and RPM in the final 30–60 seconds.
3. Electronic Logging Device (ELD) and paper log audit: Hours-of-service violations are found in nearly 40% of serious truck crashes.
4. GPS and Qualcomm messages: Prove the driver was texting or being pressured by dispatch.
5. Maintenance and pre/post-trip inspection reports: Missing brake adjustments, cracked frames, and tire tread violations.
6. FMCSA safety ratings and prior violations: Many carriers operating on 101 have “unsatisfactory” ratings and a history of crashes.
7. Driver personnel file: Prior DUIs, failed drug tests, and falsified applications.
8. Cell-phone forensics and dash-cam video: Often the smoking gun that destroys the driver’s story.
9. Toxicology: We demand blood and urine samples even if CHP did not.
10. Corporate discovery: Internal emails, safety meeting minutes, and bonus structures that reward miles over safety.

The Long-Term Consequences of Truck Accident Injuries

Surviving a truck crash is just the beginning. Common injuries include:

• Traumatic brain injuries require lifelong care
• Spinal cord damage and paralysis
• Multiple fractures needing rods, plates, and years of physical therapy
• Crush injuries and amputations
• Severe burns from post-crash fires
• PTSD, depression, and family strain

Medical expenses can quickly accrue and reach millions. A single airlift to Santa Rosa Memorial Trauma Center can cost more than $60,000. Providing a lifetime of care for a person with quadriplegia can cost over $10 million. Consideration is given to lost earning potential, home modifications, and round-the-clock nursing. We hire the best life-care planners, economists, and vocational experts in California to calculate every future dollar, and we force the responsible parties to pay it.

Types of Compensation in Truck Accident Cases

Because liability limits are high and injuries are severe, compensation can be life-changing:

• Past and future medical expenses
• Lost wages and loss of earning capacity
• Physical pain and suffering, as well as emotional distress (no cap in California)
• Loss of consortium and family relationships
• Punitive damages if the conduct was reckless or malicious
• Wrongful death benefits, which include funeral costs and loss of financial support

Local Knowledge Makes All the Difference

We know precisely which Caltrans cameras cover every 101 interchange, which local towing yards hold crushed vehicles (and how fast they auction them), which Sonoma County Superior Court judges have presided over trucking trials, and which insurance defense firms try to bury North Bay cases in discovery. That hyper-local experience translates directly into faster resolutions and higher settlements.