An 18-wheeler case is not a big car case. The most important evidence sits in the trucking company's hands — and some of it can legally be destroyed in months. I move first, and I move fast.
A loaded tractor-trailer can outweigh your car by twenty times or more. That physics gap is why truck crash injuries run so much worse than car crash injuries — and it's only the first difference. The ones that decide cases are legal and practical:
I'm Tom Conits. I worked for several of South Carolina's top personal injury firms before opening my own practice in Greenville, and the lesson I took from the trucking files I saw there is simple: these cases are won or lost in the first weeks. That's why, when a truck case comes in, the preservation letter goes out before almost anything else — and why, if you can't come to me, I get in my car and come to you.
I personally drive to clients' homes across Greenville and the surrounding counties — hospital rooms and kitchen tables included. You were just hurt; the last thing you need is a trip to a law office.
— Thomas Spiro Conits
Photo slot: truck-i85-corridor
Greenville sits on the busiest stretch of one of the Southeast's principal freight corridors. I-85 links Atlanta and Charlotte, and everything moving between them by road comes through the Upstate — SCDOT traffic counts through Greenville County have topped 100,000 vehicles a day at the busiest points, with tractor-trailers threaded through all of it.
And it isn't just through-traffic. The Upstate generates its own heavy truck volume:
The result is a corridor where 80,000-pound vehicles and rush-hour commuters share lanes at the I-85/I-385 Gateway interchange (rebuilt in a project completed in 2020, though volume kept climbing) and where sudden slowdowns meet loaded trucks that need far more distance to stop than any car around them. When I ask where a new client's wreck happened, the answer is usually a mile marker I already know.
If your crash involved a car rather than a commercial vehicle, my Greenville car accident page covers those cases; for a family that lost someone in a highway wreck, the wrongful death page explains that process.
Greenville's truck traffic is not only I-85. South of the city, I-385 carries the Golden Strip's commuters alongside the loaded trailers leaving Fountain Inn's distribution parks; to the southwest, log trucks run SC-72 and SC-28 through Abbeville County. Each stretch has its own traffic counts, its own courthouse question and its own evidence trail, so I have written these guides road by road.
I-385 / Golden Strip
Where crashes cluster exit by exit from Mauldin to the Laurens line, why the Greenville–Laurens county line at Fountain Inn can decide which courthouse hears your case, and what to do on an interstate shoulder.
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I-385 / Golden Strip
Fountain Inn is a town trucks come from, not just pass through: the parks off SC-418 and Woods Drive, the Laurens County side of Exit 22, the 10,001-pound line that puts a box truck under the federal trucking rules, and the paperwork that rebuilds a load's weight after the wreck.
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I-385 / Golden Strip
Highway 418 through Exit 23 by the city's and SCDOT's numbers, what S.C. Code § 56-5-4100 requires of a load of rock or gravel, the sweep duty that names the loader as well as the driver, and what changes when the dump truck is the county's, the city's or SCDOT's.
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SC-72 / SC-28 Abbeville County
Why a timber-truck wreck is not a car case: the cargo-securement rules in 49 C.F.R. Part 393, the wood load ticket that says what the truck weighed and who sent it, and an evidence clock of six months or less.
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Interstate trucking is governed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), and its regulations set the standard of care a carrier and driver owe everyone else on the road. The ones that come up again and again in injury cases:
Proving a violation takes the carrier's own records. Getting those records — completely, and before they age out — is the core craft of this work. South Carolina applies most of these rules to its own intrastate haulers too, timber trucks included. The local guides above cover the log trucks of Abbeville County and the distribution traffic at Fountain Inn's I-385 exits. One caution before you assume the rulebook applies: a farm-plated truck driven by the farm's own people and hauling its crops, livestock, machinery or supplies, not for hire, is generally a covered farm vehicle under 49 C.F.R. § 390.5, and § 390.39 lifts the CDL, drug-testing, medical-qualification, hours-of-service and maintenance rules for it.
Here is the uncomfortable truth about truck litigation: much of the proof is on a countdown timer from the moment of the crash.
The legal tool that stops the clock is a spoliation letter — a formal preservation demand that puts the carrier on notice that this evidence is subject to litigation and must be kept. Once it's on file, destroying covered evidence carries real consequences in court. Sending that letter within days, itemized to the specific carrier and equipment, is often the most valuable single thing I do on a truck case — and it's why I'd rather you call me from the hospital than after the truck has been repaired and the footage overwritten. One of the results on my results page turned on surveillance footage that existed only because we demanded it before the overwrite date. Timing is not a detail in this work; it's the work.
In a car wreck there's usually one defendant and one policy. In a truck wreck, responsibility can spread across a chain of companies, each with its own insurer:
Sorting out that chain matters for a practical reason: it determines how much insurance is actually available for your recovery. It also matters strategically, because multiple defendants pointing at each other can either strengthen your case or stall it — depending on whether your lawyer forces the question early. South Carolina's comparative negligence rules apply here as in any crash case: if the defense pins 51% or more of the fault on you, you recover nothing, so expect the carrier's team to work that angle from day one.
The lawsuit deadline is generally three years from the crash (S.C. Code § 15-3-530(5)), and generally two years when a government entity is involved, under the South Carolina Tort Claims Act. But as the evidence section above should make clear, the real deadline in a truck case is measured in days: the window to preserve logs, video, and the truck itself closes long before the statute of limitations does.
Because the injuries run severe, truck cases lean heavily on future damages — the part unrepresented claimants almost always undervalue:
When a truck crash takes a life, the claim becomes a wrongful death action brought for the family — a different legal structure with its own rules, covered on my wrongful death page. I will say here only that I handle those cases with the seriousness they deserve, and I come to the family; the family does not come to me.
"Every client gets my personal cell number. Call or text me directly — you'll never chase a case manager."
Clients hear back from me the same day — and for emergencies, anytime.
— Thomas Spiro Conits
Often several parties at once. The motor carrier is commonly responsible for its driver's on-the-job negligence, and can carry its own liability for hiring, training, supervision, and dispatch decisions. Depending on the facts, the trailer owner, a maintenance contractor, a cargo loader, or the manufacturer of a failed part may share responsibility. Each of those parties usually has its own insurer and its own lawyers, which is one of the biggest ways truck cases differ from car cases.
Generally three years from the date of the crash under S.C. Code § 15-3-530(5), and generally two years if a government entity is involved, under the South Carolina Tort Claims Act. But in truck cases the legal deadline is not the real deadline: federal rules only require carriers to keep key records like electronic driving logs for six months, and physical evidence disappears far sooner. Preservation demands need to go out in days, not years.
No honest lawyer can tell you at the first meeting. Value depends on the severity and permanence of your injuries, your medical bills and future care, lost income and earning capacity, the strength of the liability evidence, and the insurance available. What I can tell you is that commercial policies are far larger than personal auto policies — federal law requires most interstate carriers to maintain at least $750,000 in liability coverage — so the fight is usually about proof, not about whether coverage exists. Beware of anyone quoting you a number before reading a single medical record.
That is the normal situation on I-85, not the exception, and it does not defeat your claim. A crash on a South Carolina highway can generally be pursued here, and interstate carriers operate under federal registration and insurance rules built for exactly this. Out-of-state carriers do add moving parts — distant witnesses, records in another state, corporate layers between the truck and its owner — which is a practical reason to have a lawyer who starts untangling those layers immediately.
Medical care first — truck crash injuries are frequently worse than they feel on day one. Then preserve what you can: photos of all vehicles and the scene, the truck's DOT and unit numbers if visible in your photos, witness names, and the incident report number. Do not give the carrier's insurer or its rapid-response team a statement, and do not sign anything. Then get a lawyer moving on a preservation letter — the trucking company's investigators often reach the scene the same day, and your side should not start weeks behind.
Because much of it is routinely overwritten or destroyed on schedule unless someone demands otherwise. Federal rules require carriers to retain electronic logging device records for only six months. Dashcam and terminal video systems often overwrite in days or weeks. The truck itself — with its engine control module data — goes to repair or salvage quickly. A spoliation (preservation) letter puts the carrier on legal notice to keep it all; sending one early is often the single most valuable thing a truck accident lawyer does.
Often, yes. The federal rules do not start at eighteen wheels. Under 49 C.F.R. § 390.5, a truck — or a truck and trailer together — that is rated for, or actually weighs, 10,001 pounds or more and is used on a highway in interstate commerce is a commercial motor vehicle, and that is the same definition the South Carolina State Transport Police post for their own enforcement program. It takes in many box trucks and some of the larger cargo vans, which means the driver-qualification, hours-of-service, inspection and record-keeping rules apply and I can demand the carrier's records the same way I would from an interstate trucking company. A lighter van is an ordinary car case, though the company still generally answers for its driver's negligence on the job. For the Fountain Inn version, with the local traffic counts, see it does not have to be an 18-wheeler.
Free consultation. No fee unless we win. If getting to an office is hard right now, Tom will come to you.
Office: 100 Williams St, Greenville, SC 29601 · (864) 777-1000