Trucking Accident Attorney Blog

As a Missouri tractor-trailer accident lawyer, I was delighted to read that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has banned truck drivers from texting and driving. According to a Jan. 27 article in the Springfield News-Leader, the ban is effective immediately and applies to all commercial drivers. That means drivers of any size truck that requires a commercial license, as well as bus drivers. It’s the first federal ban on texting and driving that does not apply exclusively to federal employees, and part of LaHood’s focus on reducing distracted driving. The federal ban penalizes truck and bus drivers up to $2,750 per violation. Both houses of Congress are considering unrelated legislation that would make federal transportation funding conditional on passing state laws banning texting while driving for all drivers.

Distracted driving emerged as an issue in 2009 after research showed that truckers who text behind the wheel raise their crash risk by 23 times and take their eyes off the road for nearly five seconds at a time. At highway speeds, that’s enough time for a semi truck to travel more than the length of a football field. For at least one Missouri trucking company, the News-Leader reported, the ban won’t make a difference because it already prohibits its truckers from texting on the job. A spokesman for Prime Inc., a central Missouri trucking company, said the company strongly supported the ban as a safety measure for everyone on the road. However, KMOX in St. Louis reported Jan. 27 that it might be hard for state troopers to enforce the law, because it’s hard to see into truck cabins. A law enforcement spokesman in that article said citations were most likely to occur after an accident, when police can go through phone records and find proof that the ban was violated.

Unfortunately, this is probably true. Nevertheless, as a St. Louis 18-wheeler accident lawyer, I believe this ban will help keep drivers of all vehicles safe for a few different reasons. First and foremost, a legal ban on texting for commercial drivers ties those drivers’ jobs and livelihoods to compliance. If truckers are caught doing anything that violates federal safety rules, they can be penalized by the government, and that can lead to losing their jobs, their licenses or their careers. Furthermore, truck drivers who violate a federal rule are more likely to be found liable in any trucking accident lawsuit that grows out of an accident caused by texting while driving. When the federal government has already said that a behavior is unsafe, it’s much harder to argue in court that it is not. And for both reasons, employers are likely to make compliance an important in-house safety rule as well, reinforcing the importance of following the law.

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As a Missouri tractor-trailer accident attorney, I was disappointed to see that Kansas City suffered a major multi-vehicle pileup on Interstate 35 last weekend. A three-year-old died and at least six other people were seriously injured in a crash involving 30 vehicles, the Kansas City Star reported Jan. 16. The crash took place at around 7:40 a.m. near Wellsville, Kansas, and stretched disabled vehicles for a mile down the highway. The vehicles involved included multiple semi trucks, including some that hit other semis as well as trucks that hit passenger cars. More than 17 people altogether went to at least four hospitals in the region.

At least some blamed the crash on thick fog that settled over the highway. Cathy Jankovich said visibility was almost nil past the headlights of the vehicle her son-in-law was driving, even though other drivers were passing him. The exact cause of the pileup wasn’t known, but authorities said the chain reaction began with an accident involving a tow truck. Of the thirty vehicles involved, nineteen were involved in the largest crash, including six tractor-trailers. Another crash involved six vehicles. Crash survivor Mike McRoberts told the newspaper that he and his brother raced to get out of their pickup truck after it hit two vehicles. That’s when they saw an out-of-control 18-wheeler approaching and ran for their lives. They dodged the truck, but it hit another semi “and just bent in half.”

As a St. Louis trucking accident lawyer, I wonder how much effect the weather had on this terrible accident. The newspaper’s description suggests that conditions may not have been safe for any driver -- but that may be particularly true for the truckers. Under federal law, commercial truck drivers have a special duty to use “extreme caution” in hazardous weather conditions, including heavy fog, snow or ice that limits visibility and traction. This is above and beyond the ordinary standard of care that applies to all drivers. Federal safety laws like these are made in part because large trucks can do severe damage to smaller vehicles in a crash, beyond what another car might do. Unfortunately, they’re also necessary because trucking companies and their drivers have a financial incentive to disregard safety and drive through bad weather.

Continue reading "Thirty-Vehicle Pileup Outside Kansas City Leads to Multiple Truck Crashes" »

As a Missouri tractor-trailer accident lawyer, I was pleased to see a Jan. 13 blog post from FleetOwner.com addressing the dangers of texting while driving. The Trucks at Work blog made the case that truckers and the trucking industry generally should pay attention to this issue, in part because it’s a growing concern for safety advocates throughout the United States. The federal Department of Transportation and the private National Safety Council have made cell phone use behind the wheel a focus of their campaigns against distracted driving. In fact, the NSC this week launched a MADD-like organization advocating against texting while driving, named FocusDriven.

According to the blog, the NSC estimates that drivers using a cell phone in some way cause 28% of crashes. The majority are drivers talking on the phone, according to the NSC, but 200,000 of those crashes, or 3% of crashes overall, were caused by drivers involved in texting. Using other research, the blogger suggested that the true number of texting-involved crashes could be as high as 1 million. While the author didn’t seem to think truckers were likely to be guilty of texting-- despite some research to the contrary -- he suggested that truck drivers should care because people in smaller vehicles were likely to cause crashes. According to research from the Auto Club Foundation and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, truckers did nothing unsafe in 73% of all crashes.

As a southern Illinois trucking accident attorney, I won’t argue with those numbers. Research consistently shows that drivers of heavy trucks crash less often than non-commercial drivers. However, when trucks do crash into passenger vehicles, they can cause deaths and devastating injuries, even if the same accident wouldn’t have been serious if the truck had been another car. Or, to put it another way, trucks’ much greater size and weight gives them the potential to kill and permanently disable the motorists around them, regardless of fault. That makes it essential for truck drivers to drive carefully and avoid anything that could impair their driving or judgment. And that means truckers have at least as much responsibility as other drivers, if not more, to avoid texting on the road.

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As a Missouri semi truck accident lawyer, I was pleased to see that federal regulators are considering tighter rules limiting truck drivers’ hours on the road. According to a Jan. 4 article from business publication Logistics Management, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has announced four public “listening sessions” to get input for new rules on truckers’ hours of service. Topics could include requirements for rest and on-duty time, use of sleeper berths and loading and unloading times. The agency emphasized that this its rules are intended to promote safety and prevent devastating accidents with commercial trucks.

The meetings are set as a result of the FMCSA’s settlement of a lengthy lawsuit brought by safety groups including the Truck Safety Coalition, the Teamsters and Public Citizen. The terms of the settlement require new rules to be submitted for review nine months after the settlement was reached, which will be in mid-summer. Trucking companies oppose new rules, arguing that the current rules, which were formed in 1935 and updated in 2000, are working fine. Currently, drivers of tractor-trailers may drive up to 11 hours at a time, after a 10-hour off-duty period. They also face a weekly limit of 60 hours of driving in seven days or 70 hours in eight days, after which they must take a “weekend” of at least 34 straight hours. The safety groups contend that the on-duty periods are too long and can leave drivers impaired.

As a southern Illinois tractor-trailer accident attorney, I’m glad these groups are considering our safety. Driving while fatigued is an issue for drivers of all kinds of vehicles. Past studies have suggested that a sleep-deprived driver may be just as dangerous as a drunk driver. This is too big a risk to take when it comes to large commercial trucks, which can have up to 100 times the weight of a Honda Civic. In a crash, that weight difference can translate to severe damage for the smaller vehicle, and grave injuries or death for the people inside. Statistically, commercial drivers are involved in far fewer accidents than drivers of passenger vehicles -- but one mistake by a commercial driver can have far graver consequences. For the sake of the people who share the highways and roads with truckers, revising the rules to conform with science makes sense.

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