my two cents worth....
The truck driver getting a ticket is not relivent at all. The criminal charge is no big deal. If he did get charged I'd tell him to be careful about fighting it too much. If he did what he is charged with he needs to plead no contest or what ever the correct legal term is in the jurisdiction the accident occured. In some jurisdictions a guilty plea or verdict can be used in civil court but a no contest plea can't. If he is guilty and fights it he is presenting himself two major problems in my opinion.
1. He is going to cause the other party to have to come to court and testify against him and make them relive the trama and make them mad. Which translates into wanting money more.
2. any testimony he gives in a criminal trial will be picked over and could come back to haunt him during the civil action.
Some say hire a good attorney. I don't think that is necessary in most cases. If he simply made a mistake and pulled out in front of someone (in other words he commited a simple act of negelance) his employers insurance will provide him with an attorney and 5-10 million dollars of insurance will most deffinantly handle any libality that he will personally be assigned.
Now, if he comitted an act of gross negelance, like drunk, on drugs, been driving for 20 hours, did not do a good pretrip inspection, knew the brakes or tires were bad and kept driving.....you get the point, he will need his own attorney because his company (their insurance company) will file a motion to seperate his actions from the company. If that happens he is sunk. But this VERY rarely happens.
Tell him to expect a lawsuit with his name on it because you can't sue an insurance company, only the company and the driver. When he gets the paperwork tell him not to panic, just personally take the papers to the proper person in his company and move on.
Bottom line, its bad but not a bad as some make it out to be. Their are procedures in place that take care of just this kind of thing.
Andy
Trooper Andy..... so I've dealt with this stuff for 20 years.