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If you were hurt in a truck accident on the I-15 corridor near Murray, Utah, and you think you may have played some role in the crash, you are probably worried about whether you can still recover compensation. The answer depends on Utah's comparative fault rules, and the details matter a great deal. Comparative fault in a truck accident case in Murray, Utah means the court or insurance adjuster assigns a percentage of blame to each party involved. Your final compensation is reduced by your share of that blame. This guide explains exactly how that process works, what trucking companies and their insurers do to shift fault onto injured drivers, and what steps you can take to protect your claim from the start.
Utah follows a modified comparative fault rule under Utah Code Section 78B-5-818. Under this system, you can recover compensation as long as your share of fault is 49% or less. If you are found 50% or more at fault, you recover nothing. This is sometimes called the "50 percent bar rule."
Your compensation is reduced proportionally by your percentage of fault. If a jury determines your damages are $500,000 but you were 20% at fault, you receive $400,000. That $100,000 reduction is real money, and it is exactly why insurance adjusters work so hard to argue that you share the blame.
In a truck accident case, the stakes are even higher. Commercial truck crashes routinely produce severe injuries, long hospital stays, and lifetime disability. A 20% or 30% fault assignment against you can erase tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of dollars from your recovery.
Fault in a personal injury case means negligence: a failure to act with the care a reasonable person would use under the same circumstances. For a truck driver, that includes obeying federal hours-of-service rules, keeping the truck maintained, and following safe following distances. For a car driver, it might mean signaling lane changes, keeping headlights on, or not cutting off a large vehicle.
Negligence does not have to be intentional. A simple mistake, like briefly drifting into a lane while merging from an on-ramp, can be used to assign you partial fault. The trucking company's lawyers will look for any driver behavior they can use to reduce their client's liability.
Fault calculation begins at the accident scene and continues through the insurance claims process and, if necessary, litigation. Investigators, reconstructionists, and attorneys all contribute to building a picture of what each party did wrong and to what degree.
In a straightforward rear-end collision where a truck hits a stopped car, fault is usually clear. But many truck accidents involve sudden lane changes, merges, wide turns, or multi-vehicle pileups on the I-15 near Murray, where the warehouse and distribution corridor generates heavy commercial traffic. In those scenarios, fault becomes contested quickly.
Accident reconstruction specialists use physical evidence, vehicle data, road geometry, and sometimes traffic camera footage to recreate how a crash happened. They can calculate speeds, braking distances, and the sequence of impacts. Their analysis often becomes the centerpiece of a comparative fault dispute.
Trucking companies almost always retain their own reconstruction experts immediately after a serious crash. That is one reason why you need legal representation quickly. A firm like BAM Injury Law can retain independent experts who work solely in your interest, not the carrier's.
The trucking company's insurer will open its own investigation within hours of a crash. Adjusters are trained to gather statements, review footage, and build a file that minimizes the carrier's exposure. Anything you say to that adjuster, including an apology or a statement that you "didn't see the truck," can be used to inflate your fault percentage.
Murray sits along the I-15 Salt Lake County corridor, one of the most commercially active stretches of highway in the Mountain West. Warehouses, distribution centers, and freight terminals are concentrated throughout the area, which means a constant flow of semi-trucks, flatbeds, and tanker vehicles sharing lanes with commuter traffic.
State Street, Van Winkle Expressway, and the on-ramps connecting to I-15 through Murray create merge points where passenger vehicles and large commercial trucks regularly interact at highway speeds. These locations are where shared-fault arguments arise most often, because merging behavior, lane positioning, and reaction times all come into question.
If you were injured near one of these intersections or on the I-15 through Murray, the specific geometry of where the crash happened matters. Our attorneys are familiar with this corridor and can identify which traffic cameras, UDOT sensors, and commercial property surveillance systems may have captured the crash.
Commercial trucking insurers are sophisticated. They handle thousands of claims each year and know exactly which arguments tend to increase an injured driver's fault percentage. Understanding these tactics is the first step toward defeating them.
One of the most common defenses is that the injured driver made an unsafe lane change or merge directly in front of the truck, leaving the driver no time to stop. Trucks require significantly longer stopping distances than passenger cars, and the insurer will use that physics to argue the driver bears partial responsibility.
Countering this argument requires evidence of the truck's actual speed, the driver's reaction time, and whether the truck was following too closely to begin with. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) regulations require commercial drivers to maintain safe following distances, and violations of those rules can shift fault back to the carrier.
Large trucks have substantial blind spots on both sides, directly behind the cab, and immediately in front of the bumper. Insurers often argue that an injured driver was traveling in one of these zones longer than necessary, contributing to the crash. This argument sounds reasonable in isolation, but it ignores the truck driver's duty to check mirrors, signal properly, and avoid unsafe lane changes.
Recorded statements to insurance adjusters, posts on social media, and even casual comments at the scene can all be introduced as evidence of your comparative fault. This is why attorneys consistently advise injured people not to give recorded statements without legal counsel present. You can learn more about protecting your claim by reading our guide on what to do immediately after a truck accident in Utah.
If you received a citation at the scene, even a minor one, the trucking company's lawyers will argue that the violation contributed to the crash. Speeding, failure to signal, or an expired registration can all be used to paint you as a negligent driver, even when the truck driver's conduct was far more dangerous.
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The best way to fight a comparative fault argument is with evidence that tells a clear, specific story of what the truck driver or the trucking company did wrong. Solid evidence does not just reduce your fault percentage. It can eliminate it entirely.
The I-15 through Murray is monitored by UDOT traffic cameras at multiple points. Commercial properties along State Street and in the warehouse district often have exterior surveillance systems that capture nearby roadways. These recordings are frequently overwritten within days, so they must be preserved through a legal hold letter sent immediately after the crash.
Bystanders, other drivers, and pedestrians who saw the crash are valuable witnesses. Their accounts, gathered before memory fades, can directly contradict a trucking company's version of events. An attorney can conduct witness interviews and preserve sworn statements for use in litigation.
Under FMCSA regulations, truck drivers are limited to 11 hours of driving after 10 consecutive hours off duty. Driver logs, payroll records, and dispatch data can reveal whether the driver was fatigued or in violation of hours-of-service rules at the time of your crash. Fatigue is a documented contributor to truck accidents, and a fatigued driver bears a much higher share of fault.
Brake failures, tire blowouts, and steering defects are sometimes the real cause of a crash, not the actions of either driver. Maintenance logs and inspection reports can show whether the trucking company failed to keep the vehicle in safe operating condition. This shifts fault to the carrier and potentially to the truck's owner if the driver was leased. You can explore how carrier liability works in our article on trucking company negligence and vicarious liability in Utah.
Most commercial trucks are equipped with an Event Data Recorder (EDR), commonly called a black box, and an Electronic Logging Device (ELD). These systems capture speed, braking, throttle position, GPS location, and hours-of-service data in the moments before and during a crash. This information is extraordinarily powerful in a comparative fault dispute.
Black box data can prove the truck was speeding, that the driver failed to brake in time, or that the vehicle was operating outside of legal hours. That evidence cuts directly against a shared-fault argument. It does not matter what the driver says happened. The electronic record reflects the physical reality.
The critical problem is that this data can be overwritten or lost within days of a crash. Trucking companies have no legal obligation to preserve it unless they receive a formal spoliation letter demanding preservation. Sending that letter quickly is one of the first and most important actions an attorney takes on your behalf.
Utah is a no-fault insurance state. Every driver is required to carry a minimum of $3,000 in Personal Injury Protection (PIP) coverage. After a crash, your own PIP pays for initial medical bills and a portion of lost wages, regardless of who caused the accident. This means you receive some compensation quickly, even while fault is being disputed.
However, PIP coverage is limited. To step outside the no-fault system and file a personal injury lawsuit against the truck driver or trucking company, you must meet Utah's tort threshold. That threshold requires either a serious injury (such as permanent disability, disfigurement, or dismemberment) or medical expenses exceeding $3,000. Most truck accident injuries meet this threshold without difficulty.
Once you are outside the no-fault system and pursuing a liability claim, comparative fault rules apply in full. Your PIP recovery is not affected by comparative fault. But your lawsuit recovery is reduced by your fault percentage, which is why the distinction between the two tracks of recovery matters so much. Our attorneys can explain how PIP and liability claims work together in your specific situation. See our overview of Utah PIP benefits and truck accident claims for more detail.
When your PIP insurer pays your medical bills, it may have a right to recover that money from any liability settlement you later receive. This is called subrogation. In a comparative fault case, managing subrogation claims while also fighting to minimize your fault percentage requires careful legal strategy. An experienced attorney structures settlements to protect as much of your net recovery as possible.
Truck accident cases frequently involve more than one potentially liable party. The driver, the trucking company, the cargo loader, the truck's owner (who may be different from the carrier), a maintenance contractor, or even a truck parts manufacturer could all bear some share of fault. Utah's comparative fault system allows all of these parties to be named and assigned their respective percentages.
This matters to you because it means the fault does not have to land solely on you and the driver. When liability is spread across multiple defendants, the share attributed to you becomes proportionally smaller, which increases your net recovery. Identifying every liable party is a core part of building a strong truck accident case.
For example, if the crash was caused partly by a brake defect that a maintenance company failed to repair, that company bears a percentage of fault.
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