Trucking Accident Attorney Blog

As a Missouri tractor-trailer accident attorney, I was interested to read a Nebraska opinion reminding us that insurance companies are uninterested in paying financial recoveries to anyone, including injured truckers as well as people from smaller cars hit by trucks. In Devese v. Transguard Insurance Company of America, the estate of a trucker killed in an accident was granted a chance to recover from the trucker’s occupational accident insurance policy. The trucker, Stephen O’Bryant, was driving with a suspended commercial driver’s license at the time of the crash that killed him, and Transguard denied any recovery. Sylvia Devese, the personal representative of his estate, sued Transguard for breach of contract and bad faith, and the trial court granted summary judgment to Transguard. But the Nebraska Supreme Court reversed, holding that Nebraska law requires a connection between the breach and the loss.

O’Bryant was an independent truck driver participating in a group policy with Transguard. The policy expressly excluded coverage for “any loss occurring while the Insured Person… is operating a vehicle without a valid [CDL].” Separately, O’Bryant’s license was suspended for failure to pay a judgment from an auto accident. Two months later, while driving on the suspended license, he got into the trucking accident that caused his death. His beneficiaries made an insurance claim, but Transguard denied it for breach of the CDL provision, so Devease sued, arguing that Transguard was required to show a connection between the lack of a valid license and the accident. The trial court granted summary judgment to Transguard based on the contract provision, and Devease appealed to the Nebraska Court of Appeals, which affirmed. Because a controlling precedent, Omaha Sky Divers Parachute Club v. Ranger Ins. Co was overturned in the interim, the Nebraska Supreme Court took up the case.

On appeal, Devease argued that the appeals court erred in upholding the trial court and in holding that Omaha Sky Divers was controlling. Omaha Sky Divers was a dispute over insurance in a plane crash; the high court found that the insurance company was not required to show causation between a breach of a medical fitness clause and the accident. It also held that the exclusion did not constitute a warranty or condition under a Nebraska law requiring insurers to pay unless the breach contributed to the loss. However, the court recently overturned this with D&S Realty v. Markel Ins. Co., which found that insurers wishing to deny coverage are required to show a causal connection between a breach of contract condition and the loss. Applying the same principles to the instant case, the Nebraska Supreme Court found that Transguard may not deny coverage unless it can show a connection between the breach — failure to have a valid CDL — and the crash. Transguard was attempting to foreclose liability for accidents caused by unqualified drivers, the court noted, but O’Bryant’s license was suspended for failure to pay a judgment, not bad driving. Transguard was trying to apply an overly broad condition without connection to the loss, a situation it said Nebraska law remedies. Thus, the court reversed and remanded the case to trial court for further proceedings.

Importantly, this opinion does not simply give Devease the insurance judgment she was seeking. Rather, it instructs the lower court to consider whether O’Bryant’s lack of a CDL was connected to the crash. That is, Devease and the estate will get their day in court, but they are still not guaranteed a payout. As a St. Louis big rig accident lawyer, I certainly appreciate it when my clients win big judgments — it’s my goal to win them for injured people — but it’s even more important to establish that injured people have a right to pursue justice in the first place. By establishing judicial scrutiny of contract conditions like Transguard’s, the Nebraska Supreme Court has made it unlikely that victims will be denied insurance for spurious technical violations. As a southern Illinois semi truck accident attorney, I think that’s an important victory for injured people across the state.

Continue reading "High Court Finds Nebraska Law Bars Insurance Contract Provision Requiring Valid CDL – Devese v. Transguard Ins. Co. of America" »

As a Missouri semi truck accident attorney, I represent people who were injured by truck drivers who slammed into their cars because of unsafe driving choices. In most cases, those truckers were acting within the scope of their employment, which means their employers, the trucking companies, also bear some blame for the crashes. A South Carolina appeals court found the opposite in Kase v. Ebert, a lawsuit against a trucker and his trucking company by another trucker. James Kase sued Michael Ebert and DMX Transportation Inc. over injuries he sustained when Ebert rear-ended his parked truck and engaged him in a physical fight. The South Carolina Court of Appeals found that Ebert was not acting as an employee, and thus Kase could not recover damages from DMX.

Kase was parked at a South Carolina truck stop in 2006 when he felt another vehicle bump into his. The accident itself was minor and did not injure Kase, but the two men got into a fight that injured Kase badly enough to keep him out of work for several months and eventually cost him his job. The court did not discuss who was the aggressor, but noted that Ebert fled the scene of the fight and was arrested later. Ebert had a troubled professional history that included a commercial driver’s license suspension for having too many citations in a short period; two written reprimands from DMX centered on Ebert’s hostility and performance; and a written citation in Wisconsin for speeding and inattentive driving. His personal history included a 22-year-old assault conviction arising from a parking dispute as well as failure to pay child support, requiring DMX to withhold it from his wages. Ebert continued to work for DMX for a few months after the incident, but was ultimately let go because of insubordination and too many speeding tickets.

Kase sued Ebert for assault and battery and gross negligence, and DMX for gross negligence and negligent hiring, entrustment, retention, supervision and training. DMX successfully moved for summary judgment, arguing that it had not been negligent and was not vicariously liable for Ebert’s actions because he was not acting within the course and scope of his employment. Kase appealed, arguing to the South Carolina Court of Appeals that DMX endorsed or encouraged its employees to use violence to protect DMX property. The court did not find this convincing. There is no evidence that Ebert was acting to protect DMX property when he fought Kase, the court said; he was fighting off a perceived attack. Nor did the court of appeals agree that there was enough evidence that DMX knew of Ebert’s potential for violence to put it on notice. The prior assault conviction was not enough to support a negligent hiring cause of action because it was more than 22 years old when Ebert was hired, the court said. And under South Carolina law, the situation did not meet requirements for negligent supervision and retention because Ebert was not on or using DMX property. For all these reasons, the appeals court ultimately upheld the trial court’s summary judgment order.

Because this case involves a dispute between two truck drivers, you might wonder why it would interest a southern Illinois tractor-trailer accident lawyer who represents drivers of ordinary cars. Even though Kase was a truck driver himself, he was in a very similar position to many of my clients when he sued DMX for negligence and vicarious liability. The trucking company can be genuinely guilty of bad decisions when it hires bad or unqualified drivers, or when it encourages or orders law-breaking. And unfortunately, the trucker is far less likely than his or her employer to have the deep pockets necessary to adequately compensate victims with serious injuries. As a St. Louis big rig accident attorney, I want all of the information I can get that could help my injured clients get the financial compensation and medical care they need.

Continue reading "South Carolina Court Finds Trucking Company Not Vicariously Liable for Trucker’s Fistfight – Kase v. Ebert" »

Here in Missouri, it’s been established for more than a decade that plaintiffs in truck accident cases cannot assert claims against trucking companies for both negligent entrustment and vicarious liability. So I was interested, as a St. Louis semi truck accident attorney, to see a similar ruling from the California Supreme Court. In Diaz v. Carcamo et al., the California high court reversed one of the state’s appeals courts for failing to follow precedent on the issue. It disagreed that the 1954 ruling in Armenta v. Churchill conflicted with California’s comparative fault system, and ultimately ordered a new trial in the case.

The plaintiff is Dawn Diaz, who was injured in a tractor-trailer accident on Highway 101. As she headed south on the divided highway, a northbound driver, Karen Tagliaferri, attempted to pass trucker Jose Caramo, pulled back into the lane, clipped Carcamo’s truck and flew over the divider. Diaz sustained permanent, serious injuries and eventually sued Tagliaferri, Carcamo and Carcamo’s employer, Sugar Transport. At trial, Sugar offered to admit vicarious liability if Carcamo was found negligent, but argued that admitting vicarious liability would bar Diaz from pursuing claims against it for negligence in hiring, entrusting and retaining Carcamo. The judge disagreed, and the jury eventually found that Sugar was liable for negligence as well as vicariously through Carcamo.

Sugar appealed, and the Court of Appeal affirmed. It acknowledged the Armenta decision, but noted that it did not involve an allocation of comparative fault, which was created in California in the 1970s. It also dismissed 2005’s Jeld-Wen Inc. v. Superior Court, in which a Court of Appeal dismissed a negligent entrustment claim after the defendant admitted vicarious liability, saying the case had not dealt with allocation of fault.

The Supreme Court disagreed with this. Under Armenta, it said, an admission of vicarious liability makes a negligent entrustment claim irrelevant. As a result, it said, the plaintiffs in this case should not have been permitted to introduce evidence in support of the negligence claims, including damaging evidence about Carcamo’s employment history, honesty and immigration status. The court disagreed that fault cannot be properly allocated if Sugar is removed under Armenta. Under Jeld-Wen, an employer that admits liability bears exactly the same amount of fault as the employee; thus, the employer should not even be a party that can potentially be at fault. To do otherwise could subject the employer to more fault than the employee has, which the court said was inequitable. Because the trial court failed to follow this rule and the jury may have been prejudiced by extra evidence about Carcamo, the Supreme Court ordered a new trial.

As a Missouri tractor-trailer accident lawyer, I would prefer that the California and Missouri courts had come to a different conclusion. The theories of vicarious liability and negligent entrustment are similar. However, by admitting vicarious liability, trucking companies can stop the jury from ever hearing evidence about the negligence of the trucker or their own negligence. In fact, as a result of this kind of decision, trucking companies now admit vicarious liability just so they can keep juries from hearing about their bad decisions. This is not necessarily fatal to the case, but it keeps important information away from the jury. And as a southern Illinois big rig accident attorney, I think juries should have the fullest picture possible when they decide cases, even when it’s not especially flattering to the defendants.

Continue reading "Victim Cannot Sue Trucking Company for Vicarious Liability and Also Negligent Entrustment – Diaz v. Carcamo" »

As a Missouri semi truck accident lawyer, I’m a big fan of federal hours-of-service rules for truck drivers. These are the rules that limit how long drivers may stay on the road in one work day and in one work week, ensuring that they get enough rest and that other drivers are not endangered by driver pushing through to make deadlines. That’s why I was pleased to see a proposal for stricter hours of service rules from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration last month. The proposed rules would make seven changes from existing HOS rules, including one that would likely mean longer “weekends” for drivers and another that requires all of drivers’ work days to take place within the 14-hour daily window. Trucking industry groups have blasted the new regulations as unnecessary and overly expensive.

Currently truck drivers may drive up to 11 hours a day within a 14-hour work day. The new rules may restrict drivers to 10 hours a day, although the FMCSA has said it will consider dropping it back to 11 if public comments oppose the change. More importantly for many drivers, the 14-hour work day must now include all of truckers’ on-duty activities within 13 hours, plus a one-hour break. Drivers would be required to take one 30-minute break for every seven hours on the road. And while the trucker “work week” of 60 to 70 hours and 34-hour “weekend” requirements would stay the same, there are additional requirements for the 34-hour period. Now, those 34 hours must include at least two periods from midnight to 6 a.m., and can’t be started until at least 7 days from the previous “weekend.”

The trucking industry has reacted angrily to the new rules, declaring them politicized, unnecessary and economically crippling. As a St. Louis tractor-trailer crash attorney, however, I think they’re quite modest, and may even help truckers’ jobs look more like other people’s jobs. The requirements for breaks, for example, bring trucking in line with federal law’s requirements for hourly workers. The weekend requirements give truckers a more genuine weekend -- while also ensuring that they get two nights’ rest before heading back onto the road. And the restriction to 10 hours a day of actual driving, if it is adopted, could reduce truckers’ fatigue and thus increase safety. The new requirements may cut into trucking companies’ profits, but if they reduce accidents and give drivers a more human work schedule, I believe that’s nothing more than the cost of doing business in a society that values its citizens’ lives.

Continue reading "Federal Trucking Regulator Proposes Stricter Hours of Service Rules for Truckers" »

Good news for those of us who want better safety on the roads: a bipartisan bill has been introduced to the U.S. Senate to require all truckers to use electronic on-board recorders, known as EOBRs. This technology would help enforce existing regulation of how many hours truckers can drive before they are required to rest. In my view as a southern Illinois semi truck accident attorney, this bill is long overdue. We should do everything we can do to prevent overtired truckers from causing accidents, like the one last summer in Oklahoma that killed ten people.

The Commercial Driver Compliance Improvement Act (S. 3884), sponsored by Democratic Senator Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, would end the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's seemingly endless equivocating over EOBRs. The National Transportation Safety Board has had EOBRs on its "Most Wanted List" of safety improvements for years, but the FMCSA has sought to require EOBRs only in trucks driven for companies with bad safety records. Under a rule put in place on April 2 of this year, companies with 10 percent or more hours of service violations are required to install EOBRs in all their vehicles for at least two years.

Hours-of-service regulations have been in place since the 1930s, but their enforcement has been difficult because paper record-keeping is up to the truckers themselves. EOBRs would automatically keep records according to a consistent standard. The tamper-resistant devices identify the person operating the truck, record driving time, provide real-time tracking of the truck's location, provide information to law enforcement during roadside inspections and communicate with the engine's control module. The senators pointed out that the devices also would help all companies and drivers manage their costs and risks better and improve drivers' quality of life. In addition, they would save $60 million per year in paperwork costs. Under the CDCI Act, the Department of Transportation would have 18 months to issue regulations, which would take effect three years after the bill is enacted. The DOT also would set EOBR design and performance standards.

Unfortunately, not all truck drivers recognize the important safety and regulatory benefits of EOBRs, and some are actively fighting the CDCI Act. The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association has even filed a legal challenge to the FMCSA's relatively weak rule mandating EOBRs in non-compliant carriers, arguing that it will be burdensome, expensive and invasive of drivers’ privacy. As a Missouri 18-wheeler collision attorney, I have worked with enough families who have been devastated by injuries and deaths caused by negligent, overtired truck drivers to know that any minor invasion of privacy and small cost that EOBRs would impose on truckers pales in comparison to the harm done when a 40,000-lb. truck crashes into a small car like a Ford Focus. A trucker with an EOBR gets to drive without being fatigued, and drivers of smaller vehicles don't have to worry as much about being hit when a trucker falls asleep at the wheel. How is that anything less than a win-win situation?

Continue reading "Senators Introduce Bill Requiring Better Tracking of Truckers’ Hours on the Road" »

Illinois governor Pat Quinn quietly signed legislation allowing tractor-trailers to drive at the same speeds as cars in most areas of the state, the Southtown (Ill.) Star reported Aug. 25. The bill, which takes effect next Jan. 1, makes Illinois the 41st U.S. state with a “uniform” speed limit -- the same speed limit for all types of traffic. The uniform speed limit has been hotly debated in Illinois over the past several years, with both sides claiming their preferred arrangements would reduce the number of serious trucking accidents in Illinois. Disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich rejected similar bills three times.

Truckers backed the change, saying higher speed limits would reduce accidents by reducing the difference between their speeds and the speed of passenger car traffic around them. They believe a lower speed limit for trucks encourages drivers to pass them, leading to unsafe traffic moves that cause accidents -- such as cutting off a truck that can’t stop quickly. However, highway safety advocates say increased speed limits for trucks will increase accidents because it takes longer for a heavy truck traveling at high speeds to stop. The Illinois Department of Transportation and the Illinois State Police both opposed the law, and the Automobile Club predicts that it will lead to an additional 115 traffic deaths per year. Earlier research by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety showed that only 3% of trucks in Illinois traveled faster than 70 mph under the dual speed limit, while that number was 9% in Iowa, which had a uniform 65 mph speed limit.

As the article notes, it already takes a long time for a big rig to come to a complete stop. To produce the same force as a rear-end accident involving a truck traveling 55 mph, a passenger car would have to rear-end the same vehicle at 246 mph. As any southern Illinois trucking accident attorney can tell you, those are deadly amounts of force. In semi truck accidents, that force can crush a smaller vehicle, causing deaths and very serious injuries for anyone in that vehicle. As a result, statistics show that the vast majority of deaths in trucking accidents (83% in 2007) are the deaths of people outside the truck -- regardless of who actually caused the crash. As a St. Louis tractor-trailer accident attorney, I hope the Illinois legislature would be willing to reconsider if it becomes clear that fatalities are going up.

Continue reading "Illinois Raises Highway Speed Limits for Big Rig Trucks in All Areas Outside Chicago" »

A bill that would permit heavier tractor-trailers on some Missouri highways is winding its way through the Missouri General Assembly.

The bill, SB761, would allow semis weighing as much as 85,500 pounds to use U.S. 65 and U.S. 36 highways. Currently, trucks can weigh no more than 80,000 pounds in order to use the roadways.

Sponsored by Sen. Bill Stouffer, R-Napton, SB761 would permit certified local law enforcement officers to conduct random roadside inspections to ensure tractor-trailers comply with weight and size limit laws.

In addition, the bill would ban indemnification clauses in motor carrier transportation contracts that state carriers must be indemnified for any damages arising out of a negligent or intentional act.

On April 28, the Senate approved the bill and moved it to the House Transportation Committee. On May 6, that committee voted to pass the legislation. This appears to me to be putting special interests over the interests of public safety on the highways. With the price of gas getting higher and higher cars are going to get smaller. We don't need bigger and heavier trucks on our highways.

Big trucks will be banned from using the far left lane of Interstate 70 through St. Charles County, starting January 1, 2008.

The prohibition covers a six-mile stretch that begins at Mid Rivers Mall Drive in St. Peters and ends at Zumbehl Road in St. Charles. It prevents 18-wheeler trucks weighing more than 24,000 pounds from using the far left lane except in emergency conditions or if other lanes are closed for construction.

In an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Rep. John Griesheimer, R-Washington, said, “Most people feel trucks are a menace and a danger to them on the highways. Anything we can do to curb the trucks and provide more rules and regulations for them, the better off we are.”

I agree. As someone who has represented the victims of reckless truck drivers, I have witnessed the lifetime of devastation, pain and suffering an 18-wheeler can inflict in just fractions of a second. This is Missouri’s first big truck ban. I hope the General Assembly will broaden the ban during the upcoming 2008 legislative session.

A tractor-trailer owned by Swift Transportation in April 2004 killing the driver of a Suburban when the truck driver drove 65 mph across three sets of rumble strips which were designed to warn of an approaching stop sign, and then ran the stop sign. Under Federal Regulations all truck drivers and trucking companies are required to keep a log of the number of hours the truck driver has driven to comply with the Federal Hours of Service Regulations. During the discovery phase of this case, the trucking company claimed it could not locate the driver logs .Under the rules of evidence call the adverse inference rule of evidence, this raised the inference that the driver was fatigued. Driver fatigue is the cause of many truck accidents

At trial, the truck driver did not have an explanation why he failed to slow down. The jury apparently apparently did not believe the trucking company regarding why it could not produce the driver logs, and it awarded $23.1 million in compensatory damages and $13.5 million in punitive damages.

This shows when selecting a personal injury lawyer who handles trucking accident cases, it pays to have a lawyer who is knowledgeable about trucking regualtions and asks to right interrogatories and request for production of documents to the trucking company. This discovery should always ask for the truckers logs, any downloads from the truck's black box if it has one as well as GPS readings that the trucking company maintained. Also you should always investigate the possibility that the trucking company was negligent in hiring the driver. That is why you should always investigate the drivers past employment and driving record.

If you need an experienced trucking accident lawyer, contact Jeff Lowe at the Lowe Law Firm, 877-678-3400.

Truck Accidents have been linked to driver fatigue. There have been studies that demonstrate that the number of accidents involving trucks increase dramatically between the !0th and 11th hour of the truck driver's shift. The Federal Court of Appeals used these studies to invalidate the The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration ("FMCSA") regulations allowing truck drivers to drive those extra hours.

The FMCSA has now submitted an interim final rule on hours of service to the Office of Management and Budget on Tuesday, Nov. 27. This will replace the one invalidated by the Court of Appeals. The OMB notice, however, did not include a date when the review will be complete.

On July 24, the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit tossed the provision that increased driving time to 11 hours from 10 hours and the 34-hour restart provision. In that same decision, the court denied a petition by the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association asking the court to consider the impact of changes to the sleeper-berth provision.

Once OMB approves the interim final rule, it will be published in the Federal Register. Hopefully the FMCSA will err on the side of safety and not bend to the pressures of the trucking industry to allow drivers to drive longer with less rest so they can make more money. With the make of the FMCSA and its past actions I think that is doubtful. The current administration sides with big business as well as the agencies it controls through appointments and the FMCSA is no exception. Hopefully I will be proven wrong when the interim rule is make public but I doubt it.

When truck are involved in accidents the frequency of deaths, and the severity of injuries increase substantially. Causes of trucking accidents include driver intoxication, brake failure, reckless driving, overloaded trucks, over sized trucks, driver fatigue, and driver inexperience. When a big rig driver engages in the same illegal behavior as some car drivers, the consequences can be far worse. Picture the scene when a big rig driver collides with a car because of speeding , failure to yield right of way, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or driver fatigue.

Concerns regarding the truck accident and the increasing number of 18-wheelers led to the formation of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to improve big-rig driver responsibility. Drivers were required to meet minimum national standards before they could obtain a Commercial Drivers License (CDL). Interstate trucking is regulated by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSR). In addition, each state his its own set of regulations and laws. The FMCSR regulates such issues as: safe loading, use of alcohol and drugs, diver qualifications, and emergency equipment.

Truck drivers are also required to keep trucking logs, recording their driving times and hours of rest, among other things. Before each trip, the driver must inspect his truck systematically and this is governed by FMCSR 392.7. The driver must: (1) Review any previous inspection reports, (2) Double-check that anything marked for repair was in fact repaired, (3) Check the overall condition of his truck, looking for flat tires, suspension problems etc., (4) Check underneath the truck for any evidence of oil, coolant or fuel leaks, and (4) Examine the area around the truck for anything that might present danger to its movement, such as objects on the ground or low hanging wires.

Driver fatigue is also regulated by the FMCSR, in an attempt to cut down on accidents caused by sleepy or slow-reacting drivers. For instance, truck drivers may drive for 11 hours if they've just had 10 consecutive hours off but may not drive after being on the road for 60 hours in a 7-day period. They must take at least 34 consecutive hours off before they can begin another driving cycle. Because of pressure over the profit margin, drivers are sometimes drive more hours than these regulations permit with the companies tacit permission or purposely turning a blind eye to the truckers violations.

If you or a loved one is hurt in a semi-truck accident you should consult an an attorney experienced in handing truck accidents In addition time is of the essence because relevant evidence may disappear as time passes, such as the truck drivers log, which may legally be destroyed after 6 months a truck accident. These log books can supply evidence of: Maintenance and repairs. Also, memories fade, people move away, become ill, even die. All of this makes gathering evidence company will want to resolve things as quickly as possible, even right at the scene of the accident.

Also never sign any document presented to you by an insurance representative without first consulting an attorney. You could be signing away your right to proper compensation. Keep in mind that insurance companies make their money by investing. That means that the less they can pay out in compensation to their customers, and the longer they can delay any such payments, the more income they can be drawing on their invested money. The interests of an insurance company are directly opposite to yours as an accident victim. Don't delay in consulting an experienced truck accident attorney.

Truck drivers hours of service regulations are the laws that truck drivers have to follow regarding the number of hours they can drive per day and how long they must rest. The federal court struck down new Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration ("FMCSA") regulations that would allow an 11-hour driving day followed by 10 hours of rest with a 34-hour reset. The court did not think that was safe and struck down the new law which would result in going back to 10 hours of drive time followed by an 8-hour rest.

The American Truckers Association ("ATA") President Bill Graves stated that: "The ATA believes the existing rules have proven to be a significant improvement over the old rules in terms of reducing driver fatigue and related incidents. Motor carrier experience and FMCSA data dramatically illustrate this. The ATA plans to provide additional real-world documentation of the effectiveness of the current rules."

FMCSA administrator Annette Sandberg: "We have a very aggressive goal at the Department of Transportation to reduce fatalities on our nation's highways, so safety is the top issue in our rule-making process. We developed the new hours-of-service rule with the priority in mind of reducing fatigue-related truck crashes, most notably in the long-haul sector where truck driver fatigue is 18 times greater than that of the short-haul sector. It is important to note that the research supporting the new rule estimates that only 5.5% of all large truck crashes are fatigue-related."

Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety president Judith Stone stated "In today's ruling, the court has once again sided with public safety and rejected FMCSA's illogical proposition that driving longer hours and working longer days will somehow solve truck driver fatigue."

Judge David Sentell who struck down the FMCSA new rule held that: "The agency [FMCSA] admits that studies show that crash risk increases, in the agency's words, 'geometrically' after the eighth hour on duty." He also chastised the agency for "ignoring its own evidence that fatigue causes many truck accidents" in a December 2006 ruling on the proposed HOS rules.

Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety VP Jackie Gillan: "In the last 10 years, 56,935 people have died and a million more were injured in truck crashes in communities across the country. American families are paying a steep personal and financial price for this public health disaster. ... It's time to stop coddling the trucking industry and make the safety of all motorists, including truck drivers, a priority."

Public Citizen president Joan Claybrook: "Large trucks are rolling time bombs on our highways, with tired truckers allowed to work 14 and 16 hours a day under the new DOT rules, making truck driving the most dangerous occupation in America."

PATT (Parents Against Tired Truckers) founder Daphne Izer: "The trucking profession has become 'sweatshops on wheels' because of the excessive and unsafe hours of work and driving time required of truck drivers."

It is odd that the agency that is charged with protecting public safety is so intent on allowing truckers to drive longer and ignores the studies that show that after 8 hours the number of accidents involving trucks increases dramatically. Could it be that the FMCSA is promoting profits over safety because of contributions to politicians? The current administration is intent on helping big business whenever it can and if it is at the expense of safety of drivers on our Interstate Highways so be it. Luckily this time the courts are looking out for our safety and protecting us from the FMCSA and the interests of big business.

Trucks in Illinois are currently required to travel 10 mph below the 65 mph speed limit for other vehicles. Under the bill that passed the Illinois legislature the Illinois Department of Transportation Truck will be allowed to travel 65 mph, the speed limit for cars.

Illinois Governor Blagojevich has vetoed the bill twice before. In his latest veto message, the governor made it clear he doesn’t want trucks traveling at higher rates of speed. “This bill compromises safety by allowing trucks to travel at higher speeds. I remain opposed to increasing the speed limit to 65 miles per hour for large trucks,” Blagojevich wrote.
State transportation officials have called on legislators to uphold the governor’s veto of the bill. They refer to data from the Illinois DOT that shows nearly 140 people died in truck-related crashes in the state a year ago, The Southern Illinoisan reported. That number is down from an average of about 177 people who have been killed in truck-related crashes on roadways in the state in each of the past 10 years. Nevertheless, the Illinois legislature is expected to override the veto barring any unexpected change in their votes on the issue.

A truck driver on Interstate 44 in Missouri could not recover the injuries he suffered when he suffered injuries from witnessing when he got out to check defendant’s car and saw the driver and his wife badly hurt and their young daughter killed. The trucking accident happened when the a care driven by the defendant crossed over the median and hit plaintiff’s tractor trailer head-on. The truck driver sued the driver of the car that hit him, even though he was not physically injured. The truck driver claimed that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and sued the driver for negligent infliction of emotional distress the truck driver was not treated for physical or emotional injury from the impact itself or any pre-impact fear of collision. Plaintiff’s diagnosable emotional distress, mental treatment and lost time from work were from viewing the deceased child after the collision.

The truck driver claimed his damages were recoverable under Bass v. Nooney Co., 646 S.W.2d 765, 772-73 (Mo. Banc. 1983). This case replaced the impact rule with a requirement that to warrant recovery, emotional distress must be medically diagnosable and serious enough to require medical attention. The truck driver claimed his damages were the result of his post-accident viewing of the injured parties.

The trial court granted summary judgment since the truck driver, when viewing the deceased child, was not in the zone of danger and did not reasonably fear injury to himself. The court also held that the defendant, who was unconscious after the accident, had no duty to protect plaintiff from seeing his deceased child.

On August 6, 2007, the Missouri Court of Appeals, Southern District, affirmed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment against the truck driver. The court held that people who escape injury from the collision itself but then are harmed by seeing injured persons thereafter are seeking “bystander recovery”. Missouri courts have not permitted bystander recovery. See Jerrett v. Jones, 28259 (Mo. Ct. of Appeals, Southern District, August 6, 2007). In Jerrett, the court held that while the tortfeasor has a duty to project persons from physical harm, there is no duty from preventing emotional distress arising from viewing the results of an accident. In essence, the court held while defendant did have a duty to prevent injury to his own daughter, there is no basis for plaintiff to recover and defendant had no duty or ability because of being unconscious, to protect plaintiff from seeing defendant’s deceased child.

The court also affirmed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment because bystander recovery, is generally limited to someone closely related to the victim. The Restatement Second of Torts, §436(c), standard limits recovery to the immediate family. The third Restatement of torts will allow a "close family member" to recover damages for witnessing a negligently caused injury.