Trucking Accident Attorney Blog

While most accidents involving semi trucks are due to poor road conditions or exhaustion, sometimes there's a story that demonstrates the damage that sheer negligence can do. On Sunday, December 26, a semi truck was driving the wrong way down I-70 with no lights on at around 8:30 pm. That sentence is not a mistake: A semi truck driver was traveling with no lights down the wrong side of the highway, at night. Predictably, this ended in a severe collision that injured four people, including 71-year-old Martin Hernandez. Hernandez died after being airlifted to a nearby hospital.

Two of the others injured in the collision were Hernandez' wife and granddaughter. The family was traveling in order to spend the holidays together when the accident happened.

Highway troopers arrested truck driver Jason Ross at the scene, booking him on $100,000 bail. Ross was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving, vehicular homicide and assault, reckless driving, careless driving causing injury, driving on the wrong side of a divided highway and driving without headlights, according to local news sources.

Even more astonishingly, the trucking accident is not the first sign of Ross' reckless behavior. A police officer had spotted Ross' rig moving in the wrong lane and rushed to intercept him, including the officer shining a spotlight into the cab in an attempt to get Ross' attention. Sadly, the efforts obviously did not work. The trooper states that Hernandez swerved when he saw the truck, which is what likely lead to the reduced injuries for his wife and granddaughter, though at the cost of his own life.

The case looks extremely clear-cut, according to officials. The highway entrances and exits are very clearly marked, and entering them through the wrong way unaware is virtually impossible for anyone but a severely impaired driver.

As a St. Louis semi truck accident lawyer, I was disappointed to see that a Missourian is being criminally charged in connection with a crash that killed two people in Wisconsin. The Sheboygan Press reported Dec. 21 that trucker Curtis Hawkins of Dexter, Mo. is criminally charged in Wisconsin with the deaths of two people and injuries of two others in October of last year. Hawkins is accused of taking his eyes off the road too long and failing to stop for stopped traffic ahead, causing his big rig to hit at least two vehicles at 70 mph. He faces two counts of homicide by negligent operation of a vehicle in the deaths of 80-year-old Mary J. Parker of Cedar Grove, Wis. and Donald J. Sherman, 78, of Stickney, Ill. He also faces two felony counts of reckless driving causing great bodily injury. In all, he could be sentenced to as many as 13 years in prison.

Wisconsin state police say Hawkins was driving even though he had already reached the limit for how long he could drive under federal safety laws. Rather than stay off the road, the article said, he falsified his logbook and kept driving. He was on Interstate 43 that day and had just reached traffic that was bottlenecked due to a construction-related detour, at Cedar Beach Road near Belgium, Wis. Investigators say he was driving a steady 70 mph despite three signs warning about the detour, then took his eyes off the road to reach for a snack. His 18-wheeler first plowed into a car driven by Jimmie Juhasz, 64 and of Cedar Grove, where Parker was a passenger. Their car was knocked over and into a ditch. The semi then rear-ended an SUV occupied by Sherman and his wife, Roberta Sherman, 75, pushing it 150 feet. Donald Sherman died at the scene and Parker died of her injuries five days later. Roberta Sherman and Juhasz were both seriously injured, but Hawkins suffered only minor injuries.

What struck me about this case, as a Missouri trucking accident attorney, was the inclusion of information about Hawkins falsifying his log. This is unfortunately a common practice in the trucking industry. Meeting deadlines helps determine the driver’s and trucking company’s compensation, so some drivers are willing to lie in order to stay on the road longer. In fact, some trucking companies actively encourage drivers to do this, even though it’s against federal law. More importantly, driving longer than the federal hours of service limits can mean driving while too tired to make good decisions. That seems to be what police believe happened with Hawkins. As this case shows, it’s a serious problem because it puts everyone on the road at risk -- including people who just had the bad luck to be near the negligent trucker.

Continue reading "Missouri Truck Driver Criminally Charged for Falsifying Logs Before Fatal Accident" »

It is said that the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice. This was recently proved true in the case of a Mayfield Heights family that was finally awarded a major, decisive award from a trucking firm in the case of a fatal 2005 trucking accident.

Rita and Dimitry Karpov were traveling on an Indiana toll road, and traffic ahead of them slowed down, as it tends to do from time to time. A large semi truck behind them did not brake as quickly as the others on the highway, and crashed into the stopped cars. Dimitry was killed, as were three others in several different vehicles. Rita was seriously injured in the collision as well. Later, it was explained that the driver of the truck had dropped his sunglasses and leaned over to retrieve them, thus dividing his attention from the road long enough to have fatal consequences.

The award that was finally settled on was a total of $15 million, which would normally be a compelling award and a warning to irresponsible trucking drivers, but this story comes with an unfortunate twist. The owners of the original company have apparently been playing a shell game, transferring their assets to a number of other companies. Officials for the original company haven't been present at court for more than a year, leading to accusations of fraud. Attorneys involved in the case describe it as a deliberate attempt to mislead and confuse the asset trail in order to avoid having to pay the judgment.

This is why experienced trucking accident attorneys are worth seeking out for advice and counsel in any circumstance. In a just world, the owners of the company would have paid Rita Karpov immediately. Instead, she is going to have to continue to fight for her due restitution, even though it should have been settled already with the $15 million judgment.

An unusual trucking accident here in St. Louis caught my eye recently as a Missouri tractor-trailer accident attorney. As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Dec. 11, Michael Whitmore, 46, died last week when he was hit by a semi truck. Whitmore was on foot, pushing his disabled car off the Chain of Rocks bridge on Interstate 270 near Riverview Drive. There was no shoulder and it was still dark at 4:45 that morning, so Whitmore and several others called 911 to help. However, the dispatcher apparently mistook the location for Interstate 70 rather than 270, delaying the response by about six minutes. Whitmore’s family and his girlfriend said they understood that this was a mistake, but believed an earlier response could have lit the area enough to prevent a crash.

Whitmore was apparently going to work at a trucking company on Dec. 8 when his car broke down. Because there was no shoulder, his car was stuck in the westbound lanes of the Chain of Rocks bridge, with its emergency lights on but dim. His girlfriend, Monica Lewis, said she thought he moved it because he knew it could cause an accident just sitting there. An approaching truck driver saw Whitmore and his car in time to swerve away from the car, but hit Whitmore himself. The truck then hit the median and burst into flames, badly burning Whitmore. Witnesses at the scene said the trucker was distraught at having hit someone and had to be pulled from the burning truck. After initially claiming the 911 callers gave the wrong information, the police acknowledged that the mistake was theirs, but said correct information would not have prevented the crash.

As a St. Louis semi truck accident lawyer, I think Whitmore’s loved ones would be well advised to test that for themselves. This is an unusual case, in that it doesn’t sound like the truck driver bears much fault. However, if the family can show that the dispatcher’s mistake could have made a difference, they may have a lawsuit against the police department. It’s perfectly possible to sue a government agency for negligence. However, because police agencies and government agencies both have special legal protections, this is not as simple as suing an individual or private company. Typically, you must go through an administrative process before you can sue, and the deadline to start this process is often very short. That’s why experts suggest that you have an attorney’s help from the beginning.

Continue reading "Family of Driver Killed in Semi Accident Believes 911 Mistake Was Partly Responsible" »

Sometimes the implications of an accident are worse than the actual event itself. For example, on December 13^th, a diesel cargo tractor-trailer was involved in an accident in Sacramento, California. A car trying to pass the semi brushed against the truck and then collided with a nearby SUV. Amazingly, nobody was hurt. The drivers of the car and SUV were unharmed, as was the driver of the semi truck itself. Interstate 5 was clear within a few hours of the incident, with traffic moving as smoothly as one would normally expect.

However, even though no one was hurt, there was still a disturbing element of the accident: The semi truck began leaking diesel fuel almost immediately after the collision, despite the fact that it was described as very minor in nature. None of the cars was totaled by the collision, and yet the truck began to leak fuel right onto the highway.

Now, city officials had the leak contained almost immediately using barrels of sand and street sweepers, and claim that there is no fuel residue remaining on the road. Further, diesel is not as violently combustible as gasoline, and therefore is less likely to cause a freak fire during such a spill.

However, what if the vehicle had been carrying gasoline instead of diesel? Gasoline fumes are highly combustible, often igniting from as little as a single spark of static electricity. Worse, what if it had been carrying hazardous materials such as the many, many semi trucks on the roads that do carry such cargo? Dangerous acids, toxic chemicals and other volatile cargos are not something to mess around with, and if the contents of a hazardous materials truck can so easily be exposed by a minor scrape, there are design flaws that need to be addressed. Enough people are injured seriously in these accidents already, so why is such dangerous cargo carried in such a fragile state?

As a St. Louis semi truck accident lawyer, I was interested to see a report about a bad trucking accident down in Louisiana. According to the Associated Press, 21 children and two adults were injured Dec. 3 when a truck driver slammed into the back of a school bus in Port Barre, a small town west of Baton Rouge. The crash left the bus driver -- a substitute who is also the town’s mayor -- and the trucker with minor injuries. Among the students, 18 had minor to moderate injuries and three students, ages five to 15, were critically injured. Both vehicles were heavily damaged in the crash. A spokesperson for the Louisiana State Police said the truck driver had not yet been cited, but an investigation continues. The driver’s trucking company, J.B. Hunt, had no comment for the AP.

The bus was being driven by Port Barre Mayor Gil Savoy, a retired bus driver who was filling in for the regular driver. According to the Louisiana State Police, Savoy had the stop signs extended and lights flashing when the crash took place. Savoy’s wife told a local television station that he told her he saw the truck coming in the rearview mirror and yelled at the students to brace themselves. The school bus had no seat belts, as is standard for their school district and many others. Savoy’s wife said he managed to keep the bus on the road throughout the crash and stopped a few hundred feet away. However, the back end of the bus was badly deformed and one child was trapped until rescuers could cut away a bus seat. The front of the tractor-trailer was also badly damaged; the cab had to be towed away.

As a southern Illinois 18-wheeler accident attorney, I’m not surprised to hear that the trucking company declined to comment. In this situation, the trucker is almost certainly at fault, which means both he and the trucking company would be liable in any trucking accident lawsuit the victims and their families choose to pursue. In fact, given the number of victims in this crash, they could be sued multiple times, or hit with a class-action lawsuit costing millions of dollars. A lawsuit may not be on the minds of these families right now, but in the future, the costs of their injuries could become a serious consideration -- especially for the students who were most seriously injured. Those kids are likely to have very high medical bills, and if the injuries are permanent, they may continue needing care far into the future.

Continue reading "Tractor Trailer Rear-Ends Stopped School Bus in Louisiana, Hurting 21 Students" »

A recent South Carolina news report has raised some questions about how closely trucking companies regulate their employees’ and drivers' compliance with various safe practices. The central feature of the story was the claim of a big rig driver from Gaston, S.C. He claimed that his shipping company had fired him because he flatly refused to violate the hours of service regulations in order to make a delivery deadline. He further alleged that practices of falsifying logbooks in order to appear not to violate the regulations are common throughout the industry.

The hours of service regulations are a series of guidelines requiring drivers to get a certain amount of sleep if they're on the road. Driving a big rig is a tiring process, thanks to a combination of long hours, elevated attention in order to make sure no surrounding vehicles are harmed, generally poor diet, managing a large vehicle and road hypnosis. The regulations help prevent fatigue-related accidents that claim multiple lives every year and cause extensive property damage to boot.

However, the driver in the report claims that drivers operating on about four hours of sleep is the industry standard. If the allegations of fraud are correct, a number of questions arise. Is it possible to charge the offenders with a conspiracy to defraud regulators? Reckless endangerment also springs to mind.

Solutions proposed so far seem to revolve around an onboard recording device similar to an aircraft's black box. Unlike a company-maintained logbook, this kind of recorder is independently wired into the engine, very much like an odometer. It therefore cannot readily be tampered with, and any tampering would be quickly evident. Thus compliance could be insured for a minimum of cost and time, and people could have one more measure of safety when driving on the road with these potentially dangerous, massive vehicles.

Late last week, a semi truck was involved in an accident that killed one driver and shut down Buffalo's Route 20 for more than four hours. The trucking accident took place on Saturday and involved a semi truck and a passenger sedan.

The driver and passenger in the sedan were both seriously injured in the collision. City of Evans police stated that both were alive at the time the authorities arrived, and were taken to the hospital. However, the driver died shortly after arrival, despite all efforts to save her. Her passenger's condition remains unknown at this time, but her injuries appear to be serious yet not life-threatening. This usually means broken bones and other structural damage that doesn't appear to threaten internal organs. The driver of the tractor-trailer was not injured in the collision, which damaged his truck and totaled the other car.

Pending notification of the families, names are currently behind withheld from the public.

Witness reports of the account vary significantly. According to one self-identified witness, the passenger car either turned or was pulled under the wheels of the semi truck as the car was accelerating. Pictures of the collision show the passenger side crushed inward and seem to corroborate this account. However, others stated that the semi “T-boned” the other vehicle and that the driver of the smaller car did not at any time cross the yellow line.

The highway in question is a two-lane highway according to the pictures of the scene. There is clearly very little room for anyone to move out of the way in the event of an emergency, and tractor-trailers are simply massive vehicles. They generate huge disruptions in the airflow of the highway as they move, often buffeting and disrupting the handling of smaller vehicles. The investigation into this accident is still ongoing, and it is unknown if and when charges will be filed.