Crockett car and truck accident lawyer

Out here, it is usually a trooper

Crockett is a town of about 6,300 people in a county of about 22,000, so most people here live outside it. A crash inside town is worked by the Crockett Police Department. Out on the highways, it is usually a DPS state trooper — DPS says its Highway Patrol investigates rural traffic crashes — or a Houston County deputy.

The officer must file a written report within ten days when anyone is hurt (Transportation Code § 550.062). On a rural highway, that report may be the only official record of where the vehicles ended up, because the scene is cleared and the road reopened within hours. We get the certified copy, and we look for the trooper’s photos, measurements and any commercial-vehicle inspection.

The highways that meet in Crockett

Four state and federal highways run through Crockett, and each carries different traffic:

• US-287 runs from Palestine through Crockett, Groveton and Corrigan toward the coast, carrying through trucks between North Texas and the Gulf.
• SH-7 heads east through the Davy Crockett National Forest — Ratcliff Lake is about 15 miles out — and on through Ratcliff to Nacogdoches.
• SH-19 runs north to Palestine and south to I-45 in Huntsville.
• SH-21 follows the old Camino Real between Crockett and Nacogdoches.

Much of this is two-lane road with narrow shoulders, rural driveways and long stretches without lighting. The crashes that come out of it are the hard ones: head-on collisions when someone passes on a hill or a curve, drivers drifting across the center line at night, and rear-end crashes behind a slow truck turning onto a county road.

Log trucks and the federal rules

This is timber country: national forest lies east of town, and TxDOT’s records list forest highways running from Crockett toward Lufkin and Corrigan. Loaded log trucks share the same two lanes as everyone else. Texas applies the federal motor carrier safety rules to trucks over 26,000 pounds even when they never leave Texas (37 Tex. Admin. Code § 4.11). A driver hauling only inside Texas may drive 12 hours after 8 hours off duty and may not drive after 15 hours on duty; an interstate driver is held to 11 and 14 (§ 4.12; FMCSA). Logs must be cradled in bunks or stakes and tied down (49 C.F.R. § 393.116).

These rules turn arguments into records. Was the driver past his hours? Was the load secured? Had the truck been inspected and repaired? The trucking company keeps those records, but not forever, so we send a written demand to preserve them right away.

Cows on the highway

Loose cattle and horses on a dark highway cause crashes in ranch country. Texas law is specific here. On a U.S. or state highway, the Texas Supreme Court has held that the owner is liable only if he knowingly allowed the animal to roam on the highway right-of-way (Pruski v. Garcia, 2020, applying Agriculture Code § 143.102). That is a high bar, so the evidence has to be gathered quickly: whose animal it was, the condition of the fence and gate, whether the animal had gotten out before, and whether neighbors had complained. Deputies and troopers often know the answers on the day of the crash. We ask while they still remember.

Getting care when the hospital is small

Crockett Medical Center runs a 24-hour emergency room. It closed in 2017 and reopened in 2018, and while it was closed the next-closest hospital was 35 miles away. If you need care a small hospital cannot provide, you may be transferred. Wherever you are treated, keep every discharge paper, and keep going to follow-up care even if it means driving. Gaps in treatment are what insurers point to first. We gather the records from every hospital and doctor involved.

Where your case is filed

Houston County cases are filed at the courthouse in Crockett, in the 3rd District Court (which also serves Anderson and Henderson counties) or the 349th District Court. The general deadline to file is two years from the crash. You can recover even if you were partly at fault, as long as you were not more than 50% responsible. If you were hit by a county or city vehicle, written notice is due within six months under state law, and a city charter can set a shorter deadline, so we check it first.

For Spanish-speaking families

Jimmy is Mexican-American, grew up in El Paso and speaks Spanish. You can talk with him directly in the language you are most comfortable in. We never ask about immigration status to help you, and your right to compensation in Texas does not depend on it.

You don’t have to drive to Houston

Crockett is about 120 miles north of the city of Houston. We handle cases here by phone, text, email and video call, and in person when needed. We handle the calls with the insurance companies and the trucking company. If your family lost someone on one of these highways, our Crockett wrongful death page (in Spanish) and our wrongful death page explain those claims.