Trucking Accident Attorney Blog

According to the Missouri Highway Patrol, 24.8% of all drivers in Missouri did not fasten their seatbelts. Under the current Missouri seatbelt law, police are only allowed to write a $10 ticket for not wearing a seatbelt, but only if the police officer notices the violation after making a traffic stop for a different reason. The proposed Missouri seatbelt law would allow the Missouri Highway Patrol and other police officers to make a traffic stop on persons not wearing seatbelts. In other states, with what are known as primary safety belt laws, they have noticed an increase in seatbelt use from 10% to 15%.

In certain areas of Missouri, it has been reported that 7 out of 15 people killed in trucking and auto accidents were not wearing seatbelts, according to Missouri State Highway Patrol records. Missouri, which currently only has a secondary seatbelt law, is ranked in the top 10 of states with the highest rates of drivers who do not use seatbelts.

One argument in support of primary safety belt laws, are that people injured in car crashes are a burden to the state, with 25% of the medical and other costs being picked up by the public. In addition, the savings in insurance premiums, government services, hospital fees, rehabilitation services, and police and fire department costs are estimated at $231 million and Missouri would be eligible to get an additional $16 million in federal funds for transportation needs.

According to Lt. Pat Hawkins, a veteran of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department, he reported he had seen people die in apparently minor accidents who were not wearing their seatbelts and others, including his own daughter, lived through horrific crashes wearing their seatbelts. According to Lt. Hawkins, the difference between life and death often comes down to the click of a seatbelt.

With the safer design of automobiles nowadays, including driver and passenger side air bags, side impact air bags, stronger pillars to support the roof, vehicles are designed to protect the occupant, if they are wearing their seatbelt. Without a seatbelt, a person becomes a projectile which can lead to paralysis and death once they leave the safety of the vehicle. It only makes sense to have a safety belt law that allows police officers to stop people not wearing a seatbelt. Based on surveys of other states, with only a secondary safety belt law, the highest rate of use is approximately 80%. States with primary safety belt laws see seatbelt use rise to 90% and above. While everyone is concerned about their freedom from regulation, everyone needs to follow common sense laws to protect them.

A tractor trailer or commercial truck can travel up to one hundred thousand miles or more on the nation's highways per year. A common emergency situation for a truck driver is a tire blow-out. The most dangerous type of tire blow-out is when a "steer tire" blows out. When that happens, a truck driver has about 2 seconds to follow the proper steps to keep the 40 ton truck under control and to slowly get off the highway.

There have been many calls by consumer groups for increased truck driver training to reduce fatal accidents. Those calls have largely fallen on deaf ears at the Federal Motor Safety Carrier Administration. According to experienced truck drivers, a truck driver has about 2 seconds to react when a steer tire blows out. A tire blow-out may come at any second while the truck driver is reaching for a drink, talking on the CB or cell phone, or looking at a passing vehicle. In those 2 seconds, the driver has to (1) keep his head and not react wildly; (2) grip the steering wheel firmly; (3) stay off the brakes and in fact, do the opposite because when driving the primary force of the truck is forward force and when there is a blow-out there is going to be a substantial amount of sideways force and braking just increases that sideways force; and (4) the driver needs to increase the forward speed which means to accelerate because that compensates for the increased sideways force and will minimize the weight on the blown tire and decrease the dragging effect. After all this is done in the approximately 2 seconds, the driver then can slowly back off the accelerator and start easing toward the side of the road.
Finally, when getting off the road, he needs to keep steering the truck smoothly and gently.

Many people suggest that once the truck is on the shoulder, it is best to coast to a stop without brakes. This is the method taught in most driver training programs and in most states' commercial drivers license manuals. Some people think that if you brake at all, you should keep the pressure very light and constant.

This type of reaction in a panic situation, which most experienced drivers are know about, must be done as second nature. That is where increased training can play a significant role in reducing the potential for a catastrophic collision by a truck carrying a 40 ton load. Despite calls by many consumer groups for increased training, the Federal Motor Safety Carrier Administration has failed to act.

Truck crashes according to a report from the Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways, are the deadliest in Wyoming and Arkansas. Missouri and Illinois are in the middle of the pack in terms of death rates compared ot other states. Wyoming has about 6.09 deaths in big truck crashes per 100,000 residents with Arkansas at about 4.17 deaths per 100,000 residents. There are approximately 100 deaths per week nation-wide as a result of truck accidents, and various consumer organizations are calling for tougher federal regulations to reduce fatalities.

Certain consumer advocates believe that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration which was created in 1999 is not doing as much as it can to improve the safety of trucks. They believe that the FMCSA is putting cargo or business interest over the safety of people. The agency was created in 1999 and that year 5,380 people were killed in crashes with big trucks. As of 2005, that figure was only reduced marginally with 5,212 people killed in truck crashes in 2005.

The primary push on the FMCSA is to reduce the hours that truckers are allowed to drive without rest, increase safety inspections of big trucks, and require on-board electronic monitors to ensure compliance with hours of service rules and train drivers better.

The United States Government's priorities are skewed regarding the death toll from truck crashes. For example, while 61 people die from e-coli infections each year, the government spends millions of dollars on food safety. The death toll of 61 people from e-coli infections is the equivalent to the 4 day death toll from truck crashes. While the government uses every resource available to stop an e-coli outbreak, unsafe tractor trailers and large trucks kill and maim tens of thousands of people each year. In spite of this carnage on the highways, the FMCSA increased the number of hours a driver can operate by 28% since 2003 up to as much as 88 hours over an 8 day driving period.

As I have written before, the hours of service that truckers are allowed to drive without rest should be decreased and on-board electronic monitoring should be the rule and the not the exception. As anyone who has ever driven on a highway with a large truck behind them, no one want a driver following them that is fatigued from driving excess hours or allowed to falsify his logs because there is no effective law to monitor or audit their hours of service log entries. The current administration, clearly favors profits of big trucking companies over safety and until a more consumer oriented administration is in place, I am afraid this will continue.