What to do if you’ve been hit by a garbage truck
**A contributed post as written for The Safe Driver by Sylvia Johnson.
It’s another fine, clear weekend morning in your neighborhood, and you’ve taken your vehicle out for a spin. Maybe you’ve ridden your bike or motorcycle if you didn’t feel like driving at all. Or, you may have just done your usual morning jog to keep yourself fit.
But your neighborhood’s garbage collectors suddenly decide to drop by. Their door-to-door garbage pickup has turned out fine thus far… that is, until the garbage truck itself crashed into you.
So, what should you do if a garbage truck hits you? Read on below to find out:
Call Emergency Medical Services and the Police
As badly as you may want to confront the driver of the garbage truck who hit you, you might not be able to do if you can barely move due to the injuries you received.
Your health is of paramount concern, especially as you’ve had an incident with a vehicle that collects waste. So before doing the next few items on our list, you should call emergency medical services to have your injuries treated and get yourself wheeled to a hospital for a further check-up.
You should also call your city’s police department so that it can send officers to respond to the site of the crash and try to catch the driver of the garbage truck who hit you.
Document as Many Incident Details as You Can
Getting caught in a road incident with a garbage truck might initially leave you in a terrible state of trauma, especially if it’s your first time being a victim in a vehicle crash. However, your presence of mind should prevail over your shock from the unfortunate incident.
You should immediately write down the garbage truck’s license plate number and take pictures of any injuries or damages that you sustained as a result of the accident. If the driver of the garbage truck who hit you decided to “hit and run,” you will want as many details as possible to provide to the police officer or officers who respond to the accident site.
You may have brought your phone along with you, in which case you can take pictures of your injuries and damages. The pictures can serve as documentation.
Ask for Your Copy of the Police Report
As part of their legal duty to quickly respond to any emergency situation, the police officer or officers who responded to your accident have to fill out a police report and file it once they report back to the station where they’re assigned.
If you can physically do it despite the injuries that you sustained after getting hit by a garbage truck, you should head over to the police station where the officer or officers who responded to your accident are based and ask for a copy of their police report.
Your copy of the police report can greatly help you once you proceed to the last item listed here.
Contact a Lawyer to Explore Your Legal Options
Unlike most road accidents, ones involving you and a garbage truck can create a giant fuss on your end, especially as the said 
vehicle’s ownership, repair, and maintenance are under the auspices of your city’s sanitation department.
If you plan to file a lawsuit against your city’s sanitation department, aside from the driver of the garbage truck which hit you, it’s best to discuss it with a lawyer first. Lodging a formal complaint against your city might cost you too much money, and you might easily lose your case given that your city government has more resources to hire better attorneys who can protect them from any scandal.
Alternatively, you and your lawyer can enter into an “out of court” settlement with the lawyer of the garbage truck driver who hit you. You and the garbage truck driver should arrive at a settlement amount that both of you can agree upon so you don’t have to face off in a long and costly battle in court.
According to a report published by the Toronto Star in 2014, that city’s garbage trucks have gotten involved in more than 500 road accidents since 2009. Thus, it pays to take extra caution whenever you and a garbage truck are on the road at the same time. After all, a garbage truck is bigger than you and your vehicle and getting caught in a vehicular accident with it is no small thing at all.
But if, in fact, you’ve been hit by a garbage truck, you can take these key steps so you can get compensated by the city for any injuries and damages from the accident.
When you’re injured due to a garbage truck accident, you may ask for legal assistance by clicking here.
Sylvia Johnson
Sylvia Johnson is equipped with 20 years of experience in the business industry, where it is her passion to help teach and 
enlighten others with things in the legal and business world. She writes about the law and other subjects from a practical standpoint. She enjoys playing tennis with her daughters during her free time.