Uber and Lyft put more small vehicles on the same streets and highways that semis, delivery trucks, and box trucks use every day, and when the two collide, the case doesn’t work like an ordinary two-car crash. A rideshare trip layers a second insurance policy on top of whatever the passenger or driver already carries, and Illinois turns that policy on and off depending on what the app was doing at the exact moment of impact.
We’ve handled crashes at Phillips Law Offices where a rideshare vehicle was the victim, hit by a commercial truck that ran a red light or drifted out of a lane, and crashes where the rideshare driver was the one who caused the wreck while a truck was also involved. The insurance analysis is different in each direction, and getting it wrong costs real money. This page walks through both.
When a Rideshare Vehicle Is Hit by a Commercial Truck
Start with the more common version: you’re a passenger in an Uber or Lyft, or you’re the rideshare driver yourself, and a commercial truck causes the crash. A dump truck runs a stop sign. A semi merges into your lane without checking a mirror. A delivery van backs out of an alley without looking.
In this direction, the rideshare relationship barely complicates the claim at all. If the truck driver caused the crash, the trucking company’s commercial policy is the primary target, the same as it would be in any other truck accident case. Illinois negligence law doesn’t care that you happened to be riding in an Uber instead of your own car.
The Passenger’s Claim
A rideshare passenger hurt by a negligent truck driver has a straightforward negligence claim against the trucking company, and potentially against the driver personally, under the same theories that apply to any commercial truck crash: failure to keep a proper lookout, following too closely, an unsafe lane change, fatigue, or a violation of federal safety rules. Nothing about being a passenger in someone else’s vehicle weakens that claim. If anything, a passenger has an advantage that a driver in either vehicle doesn’t always have: a passenger typically bears none of the fault for how the crash happened, which keeps Illinois’s comparative negligence rules from cutting into a passenger’s recovery in most cases.
Uber and Lyft’s own insurance can still matter here, even though the truck caused the crash. If the trucking company’s coverage turns out to be inadequate for the injuries involved, or if a coverage dispute drags out, the rideshare company’s underinsured motorist coverage, which Illinois requires TNCs to carry alongside their liability coverage, can become a secondary source of recovery. We cover how Illinois sets those trucking-side coverage floors in our guide to how much insurance trucking companies have to carry, which matters here because a commercial truck’s federal minimum is usually far higher than what most personal auto or even rideshare policies provide.
The Rideshare Driver’s Own Claim
If you were driving for Uber or Lyft when a truck hit you, your claim runs the same direction as a passenger’s, against the truck driver and trucking company, but your own status as a rideshare driver can add a layer worth checking. Depending on whether you had a passenger in the car, had accepted a ride request, or were simply logged into the app waiting for one, a different tier of Uber or Lyft’s own insurance was technically active on your vehicle at the moment of the crash. That tier generally doesn’t reduce what you can recover from the truck driver who caused the wreck, but it can matter if the trucking company’s coverage is contested or if a hit-and-run or underinsured driver is involved instead of a well-insured commercial carrier.
Illinois’ Layered Rideshare Insurance System
Illinois regulates transportation network companies, the legal term for Uber, Lyft, and similar services, under the Transportation Network Providers Act, codified at 625 ILCS 57. Section 10 of that Act sets out the insurance a TNC and its drivers must carry, and it splits coverage into tiers based on what the driver’s app was doing at the moment of the crash. Understanding which tier applies is the first question in any case where a rideshare vehicle is involved, whether it was hit by a truck or caused the crash itself.
App Off
If the driver’s rideshare app isn’t running at all, none of the TNC’s insurance applies. The driver is just a private motorist at that point, covered only by their own personal auto policy, the same as anyone else on the road.
App On, No Ride Accepted (Period 1)
Once a driver logs into the app and is available for a ride but hasn’t been matched with a passenger yet, a lower tier of coverage kicks in. This is often called contingent liability coverage, because it only pays if the driver’s own personal auto insurer denies the claim or doesn’t provide enough coverage. Illinois law requires this period to be backed by at least $50,000 per person and $100,000 per incident for death or bodily injury, plus $25,000 for property damage, or a combined policy providing at least $100,000 per occurrence.
This tier is the one people misunderstand most often. A driver can be logged in, technically “working,” and still be riding on essentially their own insurance unless that policy falls short, at which point the TNC’s contingent coverage fills the gap.
Ride Accepted Through Drop-Off (Periods 2 and 3)
Once a driver accepts a ride request, and all the way through picking up the passenger, the trip itself, and drop-off, a much higher tier applies. Illinois requires at least $1,000,000 in combined coverage for death, bodily injury, and property damage during this window. This is the policy that matters most in a serious crash, and it’s also the policy Uber and Lyft’s own claims adjusters tend to fight hardest to avoid triggering, because the dollar difference between the two tiers is enormous.
How This Layers With the Truck’s Federal Minimum
Here’s where the two systems intersect, and it’s the real substance of a rideshare-truck case. Commercial trucking companies operate under a completely separate federal insurance floor, set by 49 CFR 387.9, which generally requires between $750,000 and $5,000,000 in liability coverage depending on the type of cargo the truck carries. Hazardous materials carriers sit at the high end; general freight carriers sit lower, typically around the $750,000 mark.
When a rideshare vehicle and a commercial truck are both involved in the same crash, whichever direction fault runs, you’re often looking at two entirely separate regulatory insurance floors stacked against each other rather than one policy covering everything. A passenger hurt when a truck hits their Uber isn’t limited to the rideshare policy at all; they’re pursuing the truck’s federal-minimum coverage as the primary source, with the TNC’s underinsured motorist coverage as a backstop only if the truck’s policy proves insufficient. A person hurt when a rideshare driver causes a crash that also involves a truck may be pursuing the TNC’s $1,000,000 policy, the truck company’s coverage if the truck shares any fault, and potentially the rideshare driver’s or truck driver’s personal coverage too, all at once. Sorting out which policy pays first, and how much each contributes, is a coverage puzzle that rarely resolves itself without someone forcing every insurer to show their hand.
When the Rideshare Driver Is at Fault in a Crash Also Involving a Truck
The harder scenario is the one where an Uber or Lyft driver causes, or contributes to, a crash that also involves a commercial truck. Picture a rideshare driver who cuts across three lanes to make an exit and clips a semi, which then jackknifes and strikes other vehicles, or a rideshare driver who rear-ends a delivery truck that had already been forced to stop short because of someone else’s negligence further up the chain. These crashes routinely involve more than two vehicles and more than one negligent actor, and Illinois law has specific rules for sorting out who pays what.
Who You Can Actually Sue
In a multi-vehicle crash involving a rideshare driver and a truck, the list of potential defendants can include the rideshare driver personally, Uber or Lyft’s insurance policy at whatever tier applied when the crash happened, the trucking company if the truck driver shares any fault at all, and the truck driver individually. You’re not required to guess which one of them is “really” responsible before filing a claim. Illinois allows a plaintiff to name every party whose negligence plausibly contributed to the crash and let the evidence, and the insurers, sort out the percentages. Our guide on who’s responsible for a truck accident covers the same multi-defendant logic that applies here, just without a rideshare vehicle in the mix.
Comparative Fault
Illinois follows a modified comparative negligence rule under 735 ILCS 5/2-1116. If you were injured in this kind of crash and some portion of fault gets assigned to you, you can still recover damages as long as your own share of fault doesn’t exceed 50 percent, though your award gets reduced by your percentage of fault. We go through how this rule plays out in ordinary truck cases in our page on Illinois’s 51 percent comparative fault rule, and the same math applies whether the other negligent party was driving a truck, a rideshare vehicle, or both.
Joint and Several Liability Among Multiple Defendants
When more than one defendant is found at fault, Illinois’s joint-and-several liability statute, 735 ILCS 5/2-1117, controls how the judgment gets divided among them. Under that statute, a defendant found more than 25 percent at fault can be held responsible for the entire judgment, not just their own share, while a defendant found 25 percent or less at fault is only responsible for their proportionate share. In a crash involving both a rideshare driver and a trucking company, this rule matters enormously, because it can determine whether a plaintiff collects the full judgment from whichever defendant actually has the money to pay it, rather than being stuck chasing a partial recovery from an underinsured individual driver.
A Hypothetical: Working Through a Multi-Party Claim
The following is an illustrative scenario, built to show how the pieces fit together. It is not a description of any actual case, client, or outcome, and no specific result is implied or guaranteed.
Imagine a Lyft driver has accepted a ride and is carrying a passenger northbound on Lake Shore Drive during evening rush hour. A box truck ahead brakes hard for traffic that has backed up around a lane closure. The Lyft driver, following too closely and glancing at a GPS instruction, doesn’t brake in time and rear-ends the box truck. The impact pushes the Lyft vehicle into the next lane, where it’s struck a second time by a delivery van that couldn’t stop in time either.
The Lyft passenger suffers a shoulder injury and a concussion. Three questions decide how the claim gets built. First, which insurance tier applies to the Lyft driver: since a ride was in progress, the $1,000,000 policy is active, not the lower contingent tier. Second, does the box truck driver share any fault for braking harder than necessary or for a maintenance issue with the truck’s brake lights: if an investigation turns up evidence the truck’s brake lights were malfunctioning, the trucking company could share liability alongside the Lyft driver. Third, does the delivery van driver who struck the Lyft vehicle a second time bear independent fault for following too closely themselves.
If the evidence shows the Lyft driver was primarily at fault but the box truck’s brake lights genuinely weren’t working, a jury could apportion fault between the Lyft driver and the trucking company. Depending on those percentages, the joint-and-several liability rule under 735 ILCS 5/2-1117 could make one defendant responsible for the full judgment even if that defendant wasn’t the primary cause, so long as their share of fault exceeds 25 percent. The passenger’s own claim isn’t reduced by comparative fault at all in this scenario, since a passenger typically holds none of the responsibility for how the crash happened.
Deadlines: How Long You Have to File
Illinois gives most personal injury claimants two years from the date of the crash to file a lawsuit, under 735 ILCS 5/13-202. That deadline applies whether your claim is against a rideshare driver, a trucking company, or both. Missing it generally bars the claim entirely, regardless of how strong the underlying facts are.
A rideshare-truck crash tends to involve more moving pieces than a simple two-car accident: multiple insurance carriers, sometimes a corporate trucking defendant with its own legal team, and a TNC that has handled thousands of claims and knows exactly how to slow one down. None of that changes the filing deadline, but it does mean the investigation and evidence-preservation work that has to happen before a deadline matters usually needs to start much sooner than two years out. Trip data, dashcam and rideshare app GPS logs, and a truck’s electronic logging device records can all be overwritten or purged well before that statutory clock runs out.
Frequently Asked Questions
If a truck hit the Uber I was riding in, do I sue Uber or the trucking company?
The trucking company is almost always the primary target if the truck driver caused the crash. Uber’s insurance generally only becomes relevant as a secondary source if the truck’s coverage turns out to be insufficient for your injuries, through the underinsured motorist coverage Illinois requires TNCs to carry.
Does it matter whether my Lyft driver had accepted the ride or was just logged into the app?
Yes, substantially. A driver who has accepted a ride, or has a passenger in the car, is covered by the $1,000,000 policy tier under Illinois’s Transportation Network Providers Act. A driver who is logged in but hasn’t been matched with a ride is covered by a much lower contingent tier that only fills gaps left by the driver’s personal insurance.
Can I sue both the rideshare driver and the trucking company if they both contributed to the crash?
Yes. Illinois doesn’t require you to pick one defendant before the facts are known. Naming every party whose negligence plausibly contributed to the crash preserves your claim against each of them while the evidence and any fault allocation gets worked out.
What if the rideshare app shows I was assigned a ride but hadn’t picked up the passenger yet?
That still falls within the higher-coverage window under Illinois law, the $1,000,000 tier applies from the moment a ride is accepted through drop-off, which includes the drive to pick up the passenger, not just the portion of the trip with a passenger in the car.
Will my own fault in the crash reduce what I can recover?
Only if you were assigned some percentage of fault, and even then only if that share doesn’t exceed 50 percent, under Illinois’s modified comparative negligence rule. A rideshare passenger typically isn’t assigned any fault at all, since passengers don’t control how the vehicles involved were driven.
How does a truck’s federal insurance minimum compare to what Uber or Lyft carries?
A commercial truck’s federal minimum under 49 CFR 387.9 typically runs between $750,000 and $5,000,000 depending on cargo type, while Uber and Lyft’s active-trip coverage sits at $1,000,000. Neither number automatically caps what you can recover if your damages exceed the applicable policy, since other sources of coverage, including umbrella policies and additional defendants, can come into play.
Talk to a Chicago Attorney About Your Rideshare-Truck Crash
These cases involve more insurance layers than almost any other kind of crash we handle, a rideshare policy that shifts tiers depending on the exact second the app registered, and a trucking company’s federal coverage sitting on top of or alongside it. At Phillips Law Offices, we sort out which policies actually apply, in what order, and how much each one owes before we ever let an adjuster tell us their number is final.
Call (312) 346-4262 for a free consultation. We’ll identify every party and every policy that could be responsible for your injuries, and we’ll fight to make sure none of them get to hide behind the other.
Attorney Advertising. This page provides general information about Illinois law and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Deadlines and outcomes depend on the specific facts of your case, speak to a licensed Illinois attorney about your situation.
