Hit by aDelivery Van?

Delivery Vehicle Accident Cases

A delivery van spends its day on neighborhood streets, stopping, backing up, and pulling back into traffic. After a delivery vehicle accident with a car, a cyclist, or a person on foot, the first record to check is the van’s weight rating, because federal safety rules start at a set weight.

A van used across state lines becomes a commercial motor vehicle at 10,001 pounds, counting the greater of its weight rating or its actual weight. The rating is printed on a label by the driver’s door. Below that weight, and with no placarded hazardous materials, the federal hours, driver qualification, and maintenance rules do not apply.

Kentucky applies the same rules to vans that never leave the state. A truck of 26,000 pounds or less that stays in Kentucky is exempt from the federal medical and hours rules, unless it carries placarded hazardous materials.

When the federal rules apply, the driver must be medically certified, and the company keeps a qualification file with the driver’s application, driving record, road test, and medical certificate, and holds it for three years after the driver leaves.

A driver who does not need a commercial license, stays within 150 air miles, and returns to the same place each day can drive without an hours log. The company still has to keep time records for six months, and the driver may not drive past the 14th hour on duty, or the 16th hour on 2 days in any 7. Under the same rules, the company has to systematically inspect, repair, and maintain each van and keep those records for one year.

Responsibility can reach past the driver. A contract driver of a van over 10,000 pounds counts as the carrier’s employee under federal safety rules, and the company answers for its own hiring, training, and safety practices. Under Kentucky law a company’s label for its drivers does not settle the question, and Kentucky’s highest court has called the right to control the work “probably the most significant consideration”. A retailer or shipper that hired the delivery company can be part of a case when the facts point to it.

A for-hire carrier hauling general freight across state lines in a vehicle over 10,000 pounds must carry at least $750,000 in liability coverage. A van under that weight, or a business delivering its own goods, falls outside that minimum, and Kentucky’s floor is $25,000 per person, $50,000 per accident, and $25,000 for property damage, or $60,000 in single-limit coverage. The company’s actual policies are part of the first round of discovery.

Kentucky’s delivery network company law covers drivers who deliver through an app in their own cars, such as Amazon Flex drivers, and it sets the insurance those drivers must carry.

Kentucky bars drivers from texting while the vehicle is moving, and commercial drivers may not use a hand-held phone while driving. A delivery driver’s phone, scanner, and route app can show what the driver was doing, so those records are requested early.

In Kentucky, a lawsuit over a motor vehicle accident must be filed within two years after the injury, the death, or the last no-fault payment, whichever is later. Phone data, telematics, and time records can be gone long before then, so a preservation letter goes to the delivery company and its insurers as early as possible. When more than one party is at fault, a Kentucky jury assigns each a percentage of the fault, including the injured person, and each defendant pays its share.