Although most trucking companies and drivers follow the law and keep their cargo within the legal limits, there are still trucks on the road every day that are loaded with extra or improperly distributed weight.
Bismarck drivers and passengers alike are at risk when semis are overloaded, whether those trucks are carrying grain, oilfield equipment, retail cargo, or anything else that needs to make its way across the state. A crash with a semi is already dangerous because of the size and weight difference between a semi and a car, but overloading adds a whole new physical reality.
Overloaded trucks are harder to control, and their behavior is less predictable in a driving emergency. Bismarck’s roads are traveled by a lot of freight. Even though most drivers obey the rules, the ones who haul illegal loads should be held responsible if their decisions endanger others on the road.
Federal and state statutes governing weight limits for commercial trucks exist for our safety on the roads. Despite these regulations, some unscrupulous drivers and trucking companies will still overload their trucks as a way of maximizing cargo and weight per trip. They do this because they’re putting profits ahead of safety.
Here are some of the ways that an overloaded truck endangers people in Bismarck:
A fully loaded commercial truck in North Dakota can legally weigh up to 80,000 pounds. If you push past that number, then the load requires a special permit before it ever reaches the road. However, there are seasonal changes to these limits. When the ground thaws each spring and the roadbed under the pavement turns soft, the state tightens what trucks can carry. These are called spring load restrictions, and they can drop the allowable weight well below the usual ceiling.
The specifics can be found in Chapter 39-12 of the North Dakota Century Code, which sets the axle weights, length rules, and permit requirements that every carrier operating on state highways has to follow.
This can affect your case. Although an illegal load does not hand you an automatic win, an overloaded semi truck accident attorney in Bismarck can demonstrate to a judge, jury, or insurer how the extra weight affected the crash. Sometimes, it can even be an indicator of negligence.
It’s a lot harder for an insurance company to argue that their driver or trucking company had no liability if the truck was hauling more weight than the law allows. Our Bismarck attorneys will collect evidence to prove what really happened, including permit records, weigh station data, and scale tickets.
Because evidence disappears quickly, it’s important to start gathering it as soon as possible.
As the state capital, Bismarck is also a busy freight corridor in the middle of North Dakota. I-94 crosses the state east to west here, and US-83 runs north and south. The two connect near the Missouri River, which separates Bismarck from neighboring Mandan. Cargo loads change directions here all day, every day.
A lot of freight traffic in Bismarck is grain, brought in from the farm country that surrounds the city. Some of it is heavy equipment and oilfield freight riding I-94 to and from the Bakken country to the west. Once US-83 reaches downtown, it becomes State Street and carries a good share of that truck traffic through Bismarck’s busiest retail corridor.
Proving fault in a crash like this depends on details most drivers never think about: how much the truck was actually carrying, which route it was cleared to run, and what the road surface was doing at the moment of impact. Sorting through all of that is our job, not yours.
When a crash involves two private vehicles, it can be pretty simple to determine liability. However, things get far more complicated when they involve commercial vehicles like semi-trucks. A truck accident in Bismarck may involve several different liable parties.
North Dakota law allows for multiple parties to share liability. In fact, even if you were partially responsible for the crash, you are still potentially eligible for compensation. You just can’t be more than 50% responsible, because in that case, you are no longer eligible.
If multiple people or entities were responsible for the crash, a Bismarck cargo-related truck accident lawyer can make sense of the role each one played. It is difficult for a person unfamiliar with ND law to successfully identify all of these individuals on their own, and failing to pinpoint all responsible parties means leaving money on the table that should be helping you recover from your injuries.
Here are some of the parties most frequently held liable for overloaded truck accidents:
If their actions were negligent, the driver of the semi may be liable, even if the trailer wasn’t overloaded. Other common contributors include factors like speed, fatigue, distraction, and following distance. When following distance is the issue, the resulting crash is often a rear-end collision. Because of the issues caused by excess weight, any one mistake can suddenly be a lot more dangerous.
If the trucking company pushed or permitted non-compliance with federal and state laws regarding cargo weight, then they may be liable for your injuries, as well. At Lowe Law Group, we investigate maintenance records, dispatch logs, and the company’s history of prior violations. That way, we can find out if the trucking company should be held accountable.
Any company that arranges for freight to be transported has an obligation to encourage responsible trucking practices. If they provide inaccurate weight information or put pressure on a carrier to move cargo than is legal, the shipper might share a portion of the liability.
Any individual or team who loaded the truck can be liable if inexperience or negligence led them to send the trailer onto the road with poor weight distribution, unsecured cargo, or too much weight.
Of course, these aren’t the only potentially liable parties. The important thing is to work with a Bismarck personal injury lawyer who has forensic investigation resources and an intricate knowledge of state law. By conducting a thorough investigation into the events leading to the crash, your attorney can determine whose insurance policy should contribute to your ongoing crash-related expenses.
When we start to investigate an overloaded truck claim, the first roadblock is that much of the evidence is found in paperwork that the trucking company owns and controls. These things include records of vehicle weights, routing orders, and driver hours. This document trail is important, but we need to access it.
Our Bismarck attorneys pursue access to records like these through the courts:
Timing is important too. Because electronic data doesn’t last forever, it’s essential to get an early start. We kickstart our investigation by sending out preservation letters right away. When we need to issue subpoenas, we do it immediately.
As an injured person, you shouldn’t be expected to do this work! You didn’t build this complicated maze of records, and you shouldn’t have to find your way through it. We take our job seriously so that you can stop worrying about evidence going cold.
In any collision between a loaded semi and a passenger vehicle, the occupants of the passenger vehicle are the most at-risk. The truck already outweighs your car many times over, and every extra pound of illegal cargo raises the force that gets driven into the people in the smaller vehicle. That is why overload crashes so often land at the catastrophic end of the scale.
The harm we see in these cases tends to include:
Recovery from injuries like these is rarely quick. A few weeks of rest does not put someone back together after a spinal fusion or a run of reconstructive surgeries. Meanwhile, the bills keep arriving, and every week away from work is income that is not there when you need it most. Many of our clients face months or years of operations, rehabilitation, and follow-up care, and some carry a permanent disability for the rest of their lives.
This is where a full-time physician on our own team changes what we can do for you. Our Medical Director, Dr. Andrew Georgi, spent his career as an anesthesiologist and took part in more than 10,000 surgeries. That experience now works for the people we represent, letting him evaluate injuries directly rather than from a distance.
Almost everyone who calls us after a truck crash wants a number, and that is a completely reasonable thing to want to know. Behind the question is usually a real fear about bills that are already stacking up.
Here is the honest answer: no one can responsibly quote you a figure this early. What an overloaded-truck claim is worth depends on facts that only surface once we understand your injuries, your prognosis, and the ways the crash has reshaped your daily life. Anything we quoted before that point would be speculation, not a real assessment.
Our record is something concrete we can put in front of you instead. Our Victories Page collects results we have won for North Dakotans injured in major truck crashes.
The only real way to answer the money question is to talk it through. A free case evaluation gives us the chance to hear the full story, see where your recovery stands today, and map out what lies ahead. You commit to nothing by showing up, and the conversation costs you nothing. Schedule a free case evaluation whenever you are ready.
When someone else’s negligence caused the wreck, your compensation usually splits into two groups.
The first, economic damages, covers everything with a clear price attached. Think hospital invoices, therapy costs, and the wages you missed while you could not work. This category matters a great deal in overload cases, and the reason is the coverage. A commercial carrier tends to hold a policy with far deeper limits than an ordinary driver would, so the more thoroughly we document your real costs, the more of that coverage we can reach. Economic damages often include:
The second group has no paper trail, and it is often where the deepest damages occur. North Dakota law allows you to recover for these harms as well, even though no receipt exists for any of them. Putting a fair value on them is part of our work:
When one of these crashes turns fatal, the people left behind can file a wrongful death claim. It reaches the family’s financial losses along with the personal ones, the support and the presence that no settlement can ever truly replace.
Yes, it often does. When a load crosses the legal limit, that violation can point toward negligence, and it carries even more force when it sits next to proof of speeding, driver fatigue, or cargo that was not secured properly. A Bismarck overloaded truck accident attorney will treat the truck’s weight as one of the first things worth checking, though it tends to do its best work as one piece of a larger case.
Responsibility in an overload crash frequently spreads past the person behind the wheel. Depending on what the evidence shows, the carrier that dispatched the truck, the shipper that arranged the freight, and the crew that loaded it can each carry a share of the blame. Instead of stopping at the driver, we trace the chain back to everyone whose choices helped put an overweight truck on the road.
It is better not to. A carrier’s insurer often reaches out fast, sounding helpful while hunting for statements they can later use to shrink or deny your claim. You are not required to give them a recorded statement or sign anything, and the safest move is to let us handle that contact so nothing you say gets turned against you while you are still healing.
In most situations, yes. Under North Dakota’s modified comparative fault system, you keep the right to compensation as long as you are found less than 50 percent responsible, with your recovery reduced by whatever percentage of fault lands on you. Because that percentage directly shrinks their payout, insurers push hard to shift blame onto you, and solid evidence is how we push back.
The state allows six years from the crash date to bring a personal injury lawsuit, a far more generous window than the two years common elsewhere. That length can be misleading, though. Records like electronic logs and weigh station data may be gone long before those six years run out, so reaching out early gives us a much better chance of preserving the proof your case rests on.
There is no upfront cost to you. Our fees are contingent, meaning we are paid only out of what we recover on your behalf, and if we do not secure compensation, you owe us nothing in attorney fees. That arrangement lets you pursue a serious case without worrying about money you do not have right now.
The aftermath of a catastrophic truck accident can be overwhelming for everyone involved. As you deal with the expense and the new reality of your injuries, the last thing you need to worry about is not having enough money to cover your expenses.
It’s normal to have a lot of questions after an overloaded truck accident. We can help you figure out the answers.
Call us today for a free case evaluation. We’ll start investigating the load, the carrier, and everyone in between, so you can focus on getting better.
I was hit on my MOTORCYCLE by a PODS TRUCK in June, yep, you read that right, PODS TRUCK. I was fortunate to walk away, but knew I needed a lawyer for an accident of this magnitude. Now, let me start by saying I don’t trust lawyers, never have. But had to put my differences aside and trust this GROUP of LAWYERS from a different state…
I was hit on my MOTORCYCLE by a PODS TRUCK in June, yep, you read that right, PODS TRUCK. I was fortunate to walk away, but knew I needed a lawyer for an accident of this magnitude. Now, let me start by saying I don’t trust lawyers, never have. But had to put my differences aside and trust this GROUP of LAWYERS from a different state to handle my affairs. RIGHT AWAY, from the beginning, MARISSA REED, WAS A ROCKSTAR!!! Made me feel at ease and answered all of my ridiculous questions like a VETERAN. Now, this has taken almost 9 months to complete, and it was well worth the wait. Marissa Reed took my settlement to a PLACE WHERE ONLY EAGLES SOAR BABY!! I GOT WAAAAY MORE than expected all thanks to the LOWE LAW GROUP AND FIERY MARISSA REED. Thank you Marissa, for ALL YOU DID FOR ME, AND ALL MY STUPID QUESTIONS. I’m alive, have a HEFTY settlement to spend and am more than thankful for these LAWYERS!! MY ATTITUDE HAS CHANGED FOR THE BETTER ON THEM! HELL YA!!
-Christian W.
Washington
I was hit by a trailer that crossed the median while I was driving on the highway which not only destroyed my car, but I have had to deal with a concussion, neck and back pain along with other PTSD issues. Life happens, some events alter your life, and it can be difficult to adjust. Lowe Law Group is the absolute best. If you want someone who’s gonna be in your c…
I was hit by a trailer that crossed the median while I was driving on the highway which not only destroyed my car, but I have had to deal with a concussion, neck and back pain along with other PTSD issues. Life happens, some events alter your life, and it can be difficult to adjust. Lowe Law Group is the absolute best. If you want someone who’s gonna be in your corner and help you out big time. I HIGHLY recommend them. They made it so much easier, and they don’t care just about money. They want you to be able to get the help you need to recover. Specifically, James Brandenburg has been so helpful and relatable. Where other companies have made me feel just like a number, he has made me feel like a friend.
-Maia. C
Idaho
I have been working with Lowe Law Group since May 2023. I was in a terrible head on collision and have been undergoing coming up on 2 years of medical treatment. I have had 3 case managers throughout the 2 years and have been working closely with Cassi these last few months and she has been amazing. She keeps me updated on whats going on with my…
I have been working with Lowe Law Group since May 2023. I was in a terrible head on collision and have been undergoing coming up on 2 years of medical treatment. I have had 3 case managers throughout the 2 years and have been working closely with Cassi these last few months and she has been amazing. She keeps me updated on whats going on with my case and is doing everything in her power to ensure the best outcome. She has come up with ideas my other two case managers had not that will benefit me in the long run! Its so nice to be able to feel taken care of and having a team backing you.
– Hailey B. Washington
I was in my car waiting at a stoplight when I was rear ended hitting my head, giving me whiplash, and a concussion. It also reaggravated other injuries I was making progress on. Cyra at Lowe Law Group was great jumping right into my case. She was professional and did well in keeping me informed of the process and updating me as needed. There were some challe…
I was in my car waiting at a stoplight when I was rear ended hitting my head, giving me whiplash, and a concussion. It also reaggravated other injuries I was making progress on. Cyra at Lowe Law Group was great jumping right into my case. She was professional and did well in keeping me informed of the process and updating me as needed. There were some challenges in dealing with the culpable party but Lowe Law I believe was able to get me the best settlement possible given all the circumstances and would recommend to anyone who has been involved in an accident.
– Nick W. Colorado
I had a wonderful experience with Lowe law group after my accident. They were great and my case manager Cyra was an absolute ANGEL to work with!! Highly recommend.
I cannot say enough, good things about Heather at Lowe Law Group! From the very beginning, she was a beacon of kind…
I cannot say enough, good things about Heather at Lowe Law Group! From the very beginning, she was a beacon of kindness, compassion, and professionalism. She truly cares about her clients, and her empathy shines through in every interaction. Heather made a potentially overwhelming process feel effortless, guiding me with such care and attention to detail that I always felt completely supported and understood. It’s rare to meet somebody who combines such warmth with incredible expertise, but Heather doesn’t flawlessly. She’s truly a gem, and I am beyond grateful for everything she has done!
Giselle was always kind. I love how she always communicated with me through this whole process. If I didn’t understand…
Giselle was always kind. I love how she always communicated with me through this whole process. If I didn’t understand something , She would explained it in terms that I could. I give Giselle and Lowe Law Group a 5 star rating. I highly recommend this Law Group if you are needing one. Thank you to everyone for your time consuming and hard work.😀
After one of the worst things that has happened to my daughter or me, Harmony was able help me work throug…
After one of the worst things that has happened to my daughter or me, Harmony was able help me work through it in every aspect I needed. From the first day we spoke she worked was so kind, honest and she worked hard for us and went above and beyond. Giving me space when I needed it encouraged me to talk when I needed to. She helped me get medical information, check out the boxes of requirements, find a counselor, and More behind-the-scenes I don’t even know about. I NEVER FELT ALONE, it stopped being my battle and it became her’s.This whole process took maybe five months and at the beginning I guessed this would be over one year. I really appreciate her and because of her work! If I ever meet someone who has an unfortunate accident, I will give them the contact information for Lowe Law Group and song their/ Harmony’s praises! THANK YOU HARMONY!
Being in a car accident and dealing with everything from the car damage to the injuries and everything in between is very…
Being in a car accident and dealing with everything from the car damage to the injuries and everything in between is very stressful. I am so grateful for everyone at Lowe Law for helping me every step of the way. Kaitlyn kept me updated on the progress of the case and answered all the questions I had. Jason and Pete are very knowledgeable and explained each step and helped guide me throughout the process. I would highly recommend them to anyone who has been in a car accident.
Thanks to Ethan for his gentle persuasion and persistent efforts.
…
Thanks to Ethan for his gentle persuasion and persistent efforts. I am very grateful to have the burden shifted to the real professionals. I might even be able to ski this winter as I expect to be recovered from this accident by the time Powder Mountain has enough snow.
Thank You Olga Baranova ( I mention you first and foremost due to the fact you were my case manager, and whom I had prima…
Thank You Olga Baranova ( I mention you first and foremost due to the fact you were my case manager, and whom I had primary contact with.) And to all who worked for me, with me, & on my behalf. For the knowledge, expertise & professionalism applied .. I not only applaud you all .. I thank you all. Wishing Blessings Bountiful To All As well as Good Health, Good Fortune Kind Regards Marc Goulet & Family.
Marissa Reed IS AWESOME!! Took 1+yrs. Difficult client & case she made it look easy. A True Professional. Need more like Marissa!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!
I answered an advertisement for this law group. I had fired the first attorney. So I retained Lowe Law Group, and Maris…
I answered an advertisement for this law group. I had fired the first attorney. So I retained Lowe Law Group, and Marissa Reed was my contact person. She could not help me but pointed me in the right direction. No charge. Thank you Marissa. I very much recommend this Law Group.
Texas
Colorado
Eugene Bicycle and Pedestrian Accidents: Oregon Law Is on Your Side — If You Know Your Rights Preventable bicycle accidents rose in 2024. In total,
Lincoln Nebraska Car Accident Claims: Common Mistakes That Could Hurt Your Case According to the Lincoln crash data analysis, there were 251 fatalities due to
Williston Oilfield Vehicle Accidents: What Injured Workers and Motorists Need to Know In 2022, there were around 1,000 crashes involving trucks in North Dakota, most of
What to Do After a Car Accident in Lehi, Utah Lehi is a rapidly growing community in Utah, and the increase in commuter traffic has
Let’s Win Your Case, Together
Colorado
