Trucking Accident Attorney Blog

As a St. Louis semi truck accident attorney, I wrote last month about the issue of truckers using cell phones on the road. Truck drivers’ phoning and driving came into public scrutiny after several serious accidents blamed on inattention by drivers who were using their phones rather than watching the road. As a result, the federal government has announced a ban on most forms of phoning and driving by commercial truck drivers, as well as recommended that states outlaw the practice by ordinary drivers. As Fox 4 News of Kansas City reported Jan. 4, the ban on truckers using their cell phones as they drive took effect at the beginning of 2012, and Missouri law enforcement is paying attention. The Highway Patrol has been issuing warnings to truckers caught with their phones so far, but on Jan. 12, drivers and their trucking companies will face a $2,750 fine each time.

The new regulations prohibit conventional dialing of phones and holding a phone up to the ear while driving, except in emergencies. Drivers are permitted to use a hands-free headset to talk while driving, but they must be able to answer, disconnect or dial the call with a single touch of a button, without taking their eyes off the road. Drivers are also banned from reaching for a phone in “an unacceptable and unsafe manner”; phones must be in “close proximity” to the driver. (As a Missouri tractor-trailer accident lawyer, I strongly suspect this language will be the subject of lawsuits in the future.) The regulations make employers liable for the actions of drivers working on their behalf, which means they can be held responsible for the tickets. Consequences include the fine to drivers; a maximum penalty to trucking companies of $11,000; and driver’s license suspensions of 60 to 120 days for second and third offenses.

I am very pleased to see this rule, and I’m also pleased to see that the Missouri Highway Patrol is already putting drivers on notice about it. Drivers who violate the law aren’t just risking a ticket — although the size of this fine should make drivers think twice about that risk. As a southern Illinois 18-wheeler accident attorney, I know many stories about cell phone use behind the wheel leading to preventable tragedies. As I mentioned earlier, the Missouri crash that led to the federal government’s request to states was triggered by cell phone use; a young man in a pickup truck was texting shortly before he set off a chain-reaction crash that killed him and a teenaged girl, and injured 38 others. Here in St. Louis, a 2008 crash was caused by a trucker who plowed into slowing traffic while allegedly reaching for his phone, killing three and injuring 15. Lives are at stake, particularly when the negligent driver is behind the wheel of a truck that can literally crush smaller vehicles with its greater weight.

At Carey, Danis & Lowe, we represent clients who suffered serious injuries or a death in the family because of a trucker or trucking company’s bad decision. Semi truck accidents are not like accidents between two cars; the physics behind this kind of collision make a death or catastrophic injury much more likely. They are also different because of the great power imbalance between an injured driver and a trucking company. A trucker in a crash is backed (at first) by his or her trucking company, which is used to dealing with crashes as part of its business and knows the legal and financial mechanisms at play. By contrast, accident victims and their families are often upset, anxious and completely unprepared to negotiate or protect their rights. We help level the playing field with experienced legal representation that can protect your rights.

Continue reading "Missouri Highway Patrol to Begin Issuing Tickets to Truckers Driving on the Phone Next Week" »

As a Missouri semi truck accident attorney, I remember a very serious crash that took place in our state last year. In this accident, a young man in a pickup rear-ended a tractor-trailer, likely because he was texting instead of paying attention to the road. This set of a chain reaction that ultimately killed that driver, Daniel Schatz, and 15-year-old Jessica Brinker, who was on one of the two school buses involved in the crash. This was a highly preventable tragedy, so I wasn’t surprised to see it cited by federal safety regulators when they announced a controversial new recommendation. As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Dec. 14, the National Transportation Safety Board has recommended that states uniformly adopt laws against any cell phone use by drivers.

The NTSB made its announcement after announcing the outcome of its investigation into the St. Louis-area crash, which happened outside Grays Summit. Schatz had sent or received 11 text messages in the 11 minutes before the crash, which started when he rear-ended a semi cab with no trailer. The truck had slowed for construction, but Schatz didn’t notice. A school bus taking students to the Six Flags in Eureka then rear-ended Schatz, and another bus rear-ended the first bus. The crash crushed Schatz’s pickup between the two larger vehicles and left the first bus on top of the truck’s flatbed and the pickup. In addition to Schatz and Brinker’s deaths, 38 people were injured. The NTSB recommendation singled out phoning and driving as an area of special concern in all types of transportation. It also found problems with the maintenance of the lead school bus, the bus drivers’ driving and the small amount of sleep Schatz had gotten.

As the Associated Press noted, the NHTSA reported 408 accidents caused by cell phone use in 2010, and 3,092 blamed on any kind of distraction. Nine states ban hand-held cell phone use by drivers and 35 and the District of Columbia ban texting while driving. Others have prohibitions just for younger drivers. Because the NTSB’s recommendation extends even to the use of hands-free devices, it goes further than any current law. The AP reported that the recommendation will be a hard sell in many states, in part because lawmakers are skeptical that cell phones are more distracting than other common behind-the-wheel distractions. They are also concerned that enforcement won’t be practical. Their constituents are not eager to give up the convenience of talking on the phone while driving, and the article noted that many people believe they can police themselves — they believe other people are the problem. Here in Missouri, an attempt to broaden the ban on texting after the Grays Summit crash was filibustered.

I am disappointed that states are so far from adopting the NTSB’s recommendations. As a St. Louis big rig accident lawyer, I’ve seen research showing that at least in those particular studies, talking on the phone is indeed more distracting than talking to someone physically in the car. That research concluded that a passenger is more likely to understand and forgive pauses in conversation or attention — but driving challenges can’t be detected over the phone. None of this is intuitively obvious, however, so it’s not hard to see why lawmakers and ordinary people might believe it’s wrong to single out cell phones for a ban. It’s also important to realize that the wireless industry actively lobbies against cell phone bans, though it now supports texting bans. As a southern Illinois tractor-trailer accident attorney, I wish the loved ones of people killed in this kind of crash had the same influence.

Continue reading "NTSB Cites Missouri Semi Truck Crash As Reason to Ban Cell Phone Use Behind the Wheel" »

As a Missouri semi truck accident attorney, I’ve written here many times about the elevated standard of conduct required to get and maintain a commercial driver’s license. A CDL authorizes the holder to operate buses and trucks of many tons and with a lot of destructive potential, so it carries special obligations. These include a reduced legal limit for DUIs, random alcohol testing and other measures designed to weed out intoxicated drivers. Those measures resulted in a license revocation for trucker James T. Robbins in 2006, in State of Wyoming Department of Transportation v. Robbins. Robbins sued to challenge his license revocation and succeeded at the trial court. But the Wyoming Supreme Court ultimately reversed, finding that the correct standard of evidence for license revocation should be “a preponderance of the evidence,” not “clear and convincing evidence.”

Clerks at a Wyoming port of entry smelled alcohol on Robbins’s breath and called state troopers, who administered a breath test that reported a BAC of 0.073. Further breath tests turned up results of 0.05, 0.041 and 0.04. He was cited for violating Wyoming and FMCA regulations forbidding drivers on duty to have a BAC of 0.04 or higher. Not long after, Robbins received a notice that his commercial driver’s license was disqualified by the Wyoming Department of Transportation. He requested a hearing, where he argued that the Wyoming statute at issue required a conviction. He lost and petitioned a Wyoming state court for a declaratory judgment finding the law unconstitutional and reinstating his license. That court found in Robbins’s favor, but using arguments not raised in the petition, so the Wyoming Supreme Court reversed and remanded. On remand, the trial court again found for Robbins, ruling that although the statute is not facially unconstitutional, the state DOT should have used a “clear and convincing evidence” standard because a “preponderance of the evidence” standard denies due process. Robbins again appealed.

On appeal, Robbins took up trial court arguments that due process of law requires that the standards for any professional license case — which require a clear and convincing evidence standard — should apply to a CDL case like his. In fact, the Wyoming Supreme Court wrote, due process is flexible and should be judged according to the private interest involved, the risk of depriving a private entity of that interest and the government interest involved. Wyoming statutes regard a CDL as a privilege, not a right, the court said. While it noted that caselaw distinguishes CDLs from non-commercial licenses, it said it has consistently found that the same standard of care applies to both. Furthermore, it said a CDL is distinguishable from other types of professional licenses because holding it is a privilege not involving any fundamental right. Thus, it does not require a heightened clear and convincing evidence standard of proof, the high court said, and thus the Wyoming statute at issue is not unconstitutional. It reversed the lower court on all issues.

This decision pleases me as a southern Illinois tractor-trailer accident lawyer. Every state regulates professional licenses, and some deference is justified because professional licenses are required for doctors, attorneys, hairdressers and many others to make a living. However, professional licenses should not be given so much deference that their holders are permitted to endanger the public, and that seemed like a likely result of the lower court’s finding in this case. Driving at all is a responsibility; driving a heavy truck with the power to kill passers-by is a serious responsibility that should never be done under the influence. By applying a higher evidentiary standard in the CDL disqualification case, the court could have allowed drivers to end-run around federal safety regulations. As a St. Louis big rig accident attorney, I’m pleased that it kept those regulations relevant.

Continue reading "Wyoming Supreme Court Upholds License Revocation for Trucker Found Drunk on Duty – Wyoming DOT v. Robbins" »

As a Missouri tractor-trailer accident lawyer, I’ve written here many times about the proposed new federal rules limiting how long truck drivers can work in any given day and any work week. So I was interested, but not that surprised, to see that the trucking industry has testified against those rules in a recent Congressional hearing. According to a June 14 article from The Trucker, a representative from the American Trucking Associations spoke to a House subcommittee about the cost of implementing the proposed new rules, currently slated for October. James Burg, owner of a trucking company in Michigan, told the subcommittee that the new rules would drive up his costs by requiring more workers to do the same work.

The new HOS rules would cut the total allowable driving time per day from 11 hours to 10 and total work shifts (which include time for things like paperwork) to 13 hours from 14. They also create a mandatory 30-minute break after seven hours of driving. It also limits the number of hours any trucker can drive in one work week. Burg owns James Burg Trucking Co., which employs 85 drivers, and also sits on the ATA Board of Directors. He told Congress that the cost of hiring new drivers would likely require him to increase revenues by 20 to 25 percent, which he said would eventually get passed on to consumers. This is in line with ATA’s position on the proposed HOS rules — it argues that current rules are working fine.

I do not doubt that ATA opposes the new HOS rules because those rules could cost trucking companies money. But as a St. Louis semi truck accident attorney, I think it’s important to ask whether profit for private trucking companies is our top priority as a society. Fatigued driving is a serious problem for drivers of cars as well as trucks, but it’s somewhat institutionalized in trucking companies, for exactly the financial reasons Burg discussed. Longer shifts on the road save money and prevent fines for missing delivery deadlines. They also increase the risk that a trucker on the road for hours will be too tired to react or pay close attention, which can lead to deadly accidents. Thus, arguably, consumers pay the price whether or not HOS rules are implemented — either by paying extra for groceries or losing loved ones and abilities. I know which choice my clients would prefer.

Continue reading "Trucking Industry Group Testifies Before Congress on New Hours of Service Rules" »

As a Missouri semi truck accident attorney, I am a fan of the federal government’s proposal to require electronic on-board recorders in the cabs of interstate trucks. EOBRs, as they are known, would replace the paper logs that truck drivers currently keep to track whether they are complying with limitations on their hours of driving. The proposal has already been endorsed by the Truckload Carriers Association at its San Diego meeting in March and has the backing of various safety organizations. But a new endorsement from the American Trucking Associations will also be influential in the trucking community, which is generally suspicious of new regulations. The ATA’s endorsement covers both a proposed rule from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and a parallel bill pending in the Senate.

Under both the FMCSA’s proposal and the Senate bill, all trucking companies and independent truckers currently required to keep Records of Duty Status would be required to install EOBRs. The goal is to track truckers’ hours on the road more reliably than allowed by the current paper system, which can be compromised by forgetfulness or deceit. At least one trucking industry group, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, opposes them saying they will drive up costs without improving safety. In its endorsement, ATA was also cautious about costs, saying regulation should ensure the devices are cost-effective. It also asked for regulations to protect the privacy of truckers and trucking companies and to remove the burden of additional supporting documentation.

This endorsement makes me, as a St. Louis tractor-trailer accident lawyer, cautiously optimistic about the reception of the EOBR rule. In general, small trucking businesses seem to oppose the rule, while larger trucking companies seem to be in favor — and the larger companies are more likely to be the ones with the money and lobbying clout. Currently, allowing drivers to self-report their hours on paper logs leaves the trucking industry virtually unregulated — drivers are basically free to lie in order to extend their hours and make more money. Sometimes, their trucking companies explicitly or subtly encourage them to lie. EOBRs have the potential to keep everyone honest, allowing federal regulators to weed out the bad carriers and reward the good. However, it’s vital that the FMCSA does not allow industry lobbyists to carve out loopholes and exceptions that undermine this goal.

Continue reading "Trucking Association Endorses Proposal for Electronic Logs of Truckers’ Hours" »

Last month, I wrote from my perspective as a Missouri semi truck accident attorney about the proposal to ban use of hand-held cell phones in the cabs of tractor-trailers. As it turns out, that’s just one of several regulations the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is planning for this year. Fleet Owner reported March 16 on a speech by FMCSA administrator Anne Ferro, who spoke at the Trucking Carriers Association convention in San Diego. Ferro told her audience to expect action on rules already proposed, including finalization of the phone rule, as well as several more proposed rules in 2011. The goal, Ferro said, was to ensure that the FMCSA is being “proactive” rather than “reactive” in getting unsafe drivers off the road.

Among the proposed regulations is one that would separate carriers’ accident data from the data on their safety inspections. A proposed rule on this would be published for public comment later in 2011, with the goal of helping identify which carriers have consistent problems with safety performance. Final rules on the ban of hand-held cell phones, and a related ban on texting, would be out this year as well. Ferro also addressed the controversy over the FMCSA’s plan to purchase electronic on-board recorders for Mexican trucks allowed to travel in the United States under a pilot program. The FMCSA has been heavily criticized for this in the trucking industry because U.S. trucks are required to buy their own EOBRs. Ferro reminded the audience that the proposal would only cover a three-year pilot program and that the FMCSA cannot require Mexican trucking companies to buy their own.

As a St. Louis tractor-trailer accident lawyer, I am pleased that the FMCSA is moving forward with regulations. In my experience, the federal government has not been strict enough with the trucking industry. For example, truck drivers were allowed for years to keep sleep and work logs by hand — a system the EOBRs would replace — even though this creates obvious opportunities for them to lie. The reaction to the proposal to buy EOBRs for Mexican trucks is understandable, but as Ferro said to the convention, EOBRs are an important way to ensure foreign truckers are complying with safety regulations. Without such a safeguard, there’s nothing to stop Mexican truckers from flagrantly violating good safety practices, endangering American lives and unfairly competing with American truckers.

Continue reading "FMCSA Administrator Warns Trucking Industry to Expect Increased Regulation" »

As a St. Louis semi truck accident attorney, I have long believed that talking on the phone while driving is a bad idea for anyone — but especially for truckers in charge of multi-ton vehicles. That’s why I was pleased to see a Feb. 23 article saying that the American Trucking Association has expressed limited support for a proposed federal rule banning the use of hand-held cell phones by truckers on the job. The ban was proposed in December by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, and Transport Topics Online reported Feb. 23 that the ATA has filed papers supporting a ban for all traffic, including but not limited to heavy trucks. Another trucking industry group, the Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association, filed comments Feb. 22 opposing the rule.

The FMCSA has already banned the practice of texting while driving a tractor-trailer. Fines for violating that rule are $2,750 per driver and up to $11,000 for the driver’s employer. The proposed rule on cell phones would use the same fines to penalize use of a cell phone in the cab of a moving truck. As it currently stands, the rule would only ban hand-held use of the phones; hands-free headsets would still be allowed. In its statement, the ATA asked the FMCSA to allow the headsets, saying phones are an important way for truckers to communicate with their dispatchers as well as family and friends they’re away from for long periods. It also said drivers should still be permitted to push some buttons to start a call. OOIDA, by contrast, said cell phones are no more dangerous than CB radios or GPS devices, and existing reckless driving laws should be enforced.

Here in the St. Louis area, we have firsthand recent experience with the consequences of truckers’ cell phone use. In 2008, a trucker named Jeffrey Knight plowed into stopped traffic on Highway 40, killing three people and injuring 14 others. He told investigators that he had been reaching for his phone at the moment of the crash. It’s possible that Knight’s mistake was taking his eyes off the road rather than the cell phone as such. But as a Missouri tractor-trailer accident lawyer, I wonder whether he would have been tempted to reach for the phone if he were required to use a hands-free system, such as the voice-activated systems available in some new cars. Those systems are pricey, but even if trucking companies don’t feel that saving lives is worth the cost, it should consider the tens of millions in legal claims awarded to Knight’s many victims.

Continue reading "Federal Trucking Regulators Propose a Ban on Hand Held Cell Phones in Moving Trucks" »

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" »

As a Missouri semi truck crash attorney, I’ve written here in the past about the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s attempts to tighten safety rules on the trucking industry. The centerpiece of recent attempts is CSA (Comprehensive Safety Analysis) 2010, an initiative by the FMCSA to update and improve its safety ratings for commercial trucking companies and their drivers. CSA 2010 evaluates companies and truckers using more specific measurements than before, makes that information available to the public and uses it to correct problems or take unsafe people and companies off the road. The program has the support of the American Trucking Associations, but as Heavy Duty Trucking magazine reported Nov. 30, several smaller industry groups have sued to stop CSA 2010 just before its planned Dec. 5 rollout.

Led by the National Association of Small Trucking Companies, the groups have asked a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. for an emergency stay. They want to block the part of CSA 2010 that would release safety data, reportedly because they are concerned that customers and plaintiffs’ attorneys would use that information. The plaintiffs claimed they would suffer irreparable harm from the release of ratings they believe would be unfairly harsh. A filing from the plaintiffs said many carriers now rated satisfactory would have a “deficient/alert” rating that would hurt their business. Furthermore, they said, attorneys for people hurt in trucking accidents could use the ratings to argue that the defendant should never have hired the “deficient” carrier. They want the FMCSA to use its full rulemaking procedure, which would require public comment and notice, and to disclose the methods it uses to come up with the new safety ratings.

It’s not hard for St. Louis tractor-trailer accident lawyers like me to read between the lines and conclude that the plaintiffs in this case are ultimately worried about their profits more than their safety. In fact, the arguments excerpted into that article don’t even mention whether the plaintiffs think the ratings are unfair. They discuss the harm the ratings could do to their business, and thus of course their profits. In my opinion, this is the wrong approach to safety ratings. If ratings are shown to be unfair in the future, the FMCSA should certainly address that, but we currently have no evidence for that idea. Instead, we have carriers who are demanding a delay for long-awaited safety ratings improvements because the ratings could possibly be unfair. This sounds a lot like an excuse to delay the ratings -- and the increased safety that other drivers deserve.

Continue reading "Trucking Industry Groups Sue Federal Government to Delay New Truck Safety Rules" »

As a Missouri tractor-trailer crash lawyer, I have been following the news about the Oklahoma crash last year that took 10 lives. Donald L. Creed, then 76 years old, was working for Kansas City-based Associated Wholesale Grocers when he crashed his rig into stopped traffic. The National Transportation Safety Board has concluded that Creed's acute fatigue was to blame for the crash, the Associated Press has reported. Creed, who has retired from truck driving, recently pleaded guilty to 10 misdemeanor counts of negligent homicide and was sentenced to 30 days in jail and 10 years of probation. He also faces several lawsuits filed by families of the victims.

Creed suffers from sleep apnea, a disorder that can prevent restful sleep and is unfortunately common among truckers. According to the Associated Press, Creed probably only slept for 5 hours before beginning work at 3 a.m. on the day of the accident. He had just returned from vacation and was no longer in the rhythm of starting work at that hour, so he was probably very tired. By the time of the crash, he had been on the road for over 10 hours. Reports at the time said Creed apparently didn't brake or take evasive action to avoid hitting the stopped traffic, and investigators said he may have been so exhausted that he didn’t even see the traffic stopped ahead of him. His 40,000-lb. truck crashed into a Land Rover and drove over three other vehicles at 70 mph. In all, ten people were killed and several others were injured.

This crash has significance well beyond the families devastated by the loss of their loved ones. The NTSB leveled serious criticism at the trucking industry and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for their failure to implement simple accident-prevention measures that it has been recommending for a decade. In 2001, the NTSB recommended that life-saving warning systems be installed on all heavy trucks. The systems would alert drivers visually and aurally when their trucks come within 350 feet of colliding with another vehicle. Some systems would automatically brake in these situations too, without needing any action by the driver. That way, a truck whose driver is asleep at the wheel could stop before causing an accident. These systems would cost about $1,000-$2,000 per truck, and could prevent a estimated 4,700 accidents and 96 deaths each year. Unfortunately, truck operators are not required to install the systems, and not many have done so voluntarily.

Similarly, the NTSB has been urging the FMCSA to address driver fatigue for 20 years, and the FMCSA has not done so even though 31 percent of all heavy truck crashes are a result of driver fatigue. Ten years ago, the NTSB recommended that trucking companies be required to use fatigue risk management programs. The programs should include screening of truck drivers for sleep apnea, the Board said, so that drivers with the disorder could receive appropriate treatment. But the FMCSA has moved slowly on this recommendation as well. It expects to produce a model risk management program in two years, and the program would not be mandatory for trucking companies.

As a St. Louis semi truck crash lawyer, I work with families who have been devastated by the loss of their loved ones in preventable accidents. All of these families want to know why their loved ones had to die, and it is painful to recognize that there is no good reason -- other than that the trucking industry doesn't want to lose profits to regulation. Because the FMCSA and Congress are reluctant to hold trucking companies responsible for being safe, the rest of us have no choice but to drive as defensively as we can. Drivers should also educate themselves about their rights. Even though the rules that truckers must obey are not nearly as stringent as they could be, some truckers still manage to ignore them, including rules about driver fatigue.

Continue reading "Oklahoma Tragedy Prompts NTSB to Fault FMCSA for Not Addressing Driver Fatigue" »

As a Missouri 18-wheeler collision attorney, I have seen many families devastated by horrific accidents caused by careless semi truck drivers. The vast majority of these accidents could have been prevented if truckers had not been too exhausted or distracted to drive safely, or had not made poor judgments about their speed or following distance. Having seen so many of these cases, I was glad to see an article aimed at truck drivers that points out the benefits of driving safely and obeying the law for them and their careers. I hope that this article will be widely read and heeded.

Jim C. Klepper, the author of the article, says truck drivers need to take responsibility for educating themselves about all trucking laws and regulations, which may differ from state to state. They also must be aware of all of their company's rules, policies, and procedures, and should keep copies of all of the laws, regulations, and company policies with them in their trucks so that they can keep on top of them. Obeying the law by avoiding speeding and tailgating helps truckers avoid accidents and hold onto their commercial driver’s licenses and their jobs. All trucking companies and their insurers want accident-free truck drivers, and under the new Comprehensive Safety Analysis 2010 program that I discussed recently, even the smallest infraction will show up on truck drivers' records. Maintaining a scrupulously clean, law-abiding record, Klepper advises, is the surest way to move ahead as a truck driver.

Klepper is the president of a law firm that defends truckers, so he has truckers' interests in mind. As a St. Louis semi trailer crash lawyer, my mind is always on the rights of victims of negligent truck drivers, so I'm pleased to see that Klepper and I agree that preventing accidents with safe driving and obeying the law benefits both groups. From the truckers' perspective, complying with laws, regulations, and company policies helps them to be team players with their employer and helps them avoid getting in trouble with the Department of Transportation, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, or law enforcement. But it's also vital that truckers drive safely and lawfully for the sake of drivers who share the roads with truckers, and who are vulnerable in crashes with trucks due to the sheer size and weight of large trucks.

As the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's Large Truck Crash Causation Study showed, many of the fatal crashes in which truck drivers were at fault resulted from exactly the kinds of illegal behaviors that Klepper cautions against. For example, 23% of truck drivers in the crashes under study were speeding, 9% were making illegal maneuvers, 7% were driving aggressively, 5% were following too closely, and 1% had used alcohol. Most of the other accidents in the study could be attributed to the drivers' failures to obey trucking laws and regulations on things like the number of hours they could drive before taking a required rest period, or maintenance of their rigs.

Klepper doesn't mention this in his advice to truck drivers, but as a southern Illinois semi truck accident attorney, I can tell them that there’s one more extremely important reason to know and obey trucking laws, regulations and policies: the law. If a truck driver is negligent and hurts someone, that driver may be required to pay large sums of money as compensation to that victim; will probably lose his or her job; and might even go to jail. Victims or their survivors can sue truckers and trucking companies for financial compensation, requiring those who caused the harm to pay for it. The compensation victims are entitled to may include medical costs, funeral costs, replacement of destroyed property such as the family car, lost past and future wages, and pain and suffering. This can, and often does, add up to six figures or more.

Continue reading "Sound Career Advice for Truck Drivers Could Help Prevent Accidents as Well" »

As a Missouri semi truck accident attorney, I've been following the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's efforts to improve its oversight of the trucking industry and reduce fatalities and injuries on the highways. For the last 30 months, a field test has been in place here in Missouri, as well as in several other states, to see how the FMCSA's new Comprehensive Safety Analysis 2010 program will affect truckers in real life. The field test revealed that under the new program, truckers will be interacting a lot more frequently with the FMCSA than they have in the past. This is good news for all motorists, since it may decrease the chances that they will be involved in deadly crashes with large trucks.

Comprehensive Safety Analysis (CSA) 2010 will replace the current SafeStat compliance review system later this year. The FMCSA found that there wasn’t enough personnel to conduct compliance reviews of motor carriers or drivers under the SafeStat program frequently enough to catch violators before their violations become serious enough to result in crashes on the highway. CSA 2010 uses different ways to rate and review carriers and will focus more on drivers, since the Large Truck Crash Causation Study indicated that more attention needed to be paid to drivers. CSA 2010 field tests measured the efficiency and effectiveness of the new safety management system and interventions of CSA 2010. Interventions range from warning letters to comprehensive on-site investigations. According to The Trucker, CSA 2010 resulted in decidedly more interventions than SafeStat, with warning letters more than quadrupling from an estimated 940 under SafeStat to 4232 under CSA 2010.

St. Louis semi trailer crash lawyers like me know that any accident involving a tractor-trailer and a car or motorcycle is likely to result in serious injuries or death for the occupants of the smaller vehicle. This is why I wholeheartedly welcome any improvement in highway safety for large trucks. CSA 2010 might be able to stop exhausted, unhealthy or unqualified drivers who shouldn't be driving from continuing to pilot enormous, heavy trucks on highways shared with lightweight passenger cars. Unfortunately, there are a lot of truck drivers like this on the roads -- with revoked or suspended drivers licenses, or distracted by cell phones or misplaced maps. It might also be able to lower the incidence of accidents caused by defective or poorly maintained vehicles, like trucks with loose wheels that fly off and hurt or kill people in other vehicles.

Continue reading "FMCSA Steps Up Oversight of Trucking Industry to Reduce Fatalities and Injuries" »

As a St. Louis tractor-trailer crash lawyer, I was interested in a news item about the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation’s meeting with trucking industry agency leaders to discuss their oversight of motor carrier transportation. Senator Frank Lautenberg, D-NJ, chairman of the subcommittee on surface transportation, called for “universal installation” of electronic on-board recorders (EOBRs) in trucks and buses to improve public safety. As I’ve discussed here before, EOBRs would make it harder for truck drivers to get away with driving for more hours than they are legally allowed to. Hours of Service (HOS) regulations specify how long drivers may work before they are required to rest in order to reduce the likelihood that fatigued drivers will cause accidents that hurt or kill people.

Lautenberg pressed Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administrator Anne Ferro to explain why only 1.3% of all trucking companies are being required to use EOBRs. As I wrote several weeks ago, the FMCSA is going to require trucking companies with a history of HOS rule-breaking to install EOBRs in 2012. Ferro told Lautenberg that the agency is working on a broader rule requiring EOBRs, but that it would take even longer to get that rule in place than it will to enact the narrower one taking effect in 2012. Meanwhile, Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association vice president Todd Spencer insists that EOBRs have nothing to do with public safety. EOBRs "can’t tell if a driver is sleepy, they can’t tell if a driver needs to rest, they can’t tell whether a driver is off duty or whether he’s physically handling 44,000 pounds of cargo. They are no more reliable than the paper logs that they would replace," he said.

Of course, records produced by EOBRs are much less likely to be falsified, which is the whole point of using them. The existing paper logs often are riddled with errors and falsehoods, because drivers want to make more money by getting to their destinations faster, or are pressured by their employers to do so. That sometimes means not taking mandated rest periods, which means they arrive over-tired and sometimes unsafe. Truck drivers are currently allowed to drive 77 hours per week, which is almost twice as long as most people work. In contrast, airline pilots are allowed to fly only 30 hours per week, which is undoubtedly one of the factors making airplanes one of the safest forms of transportation in the United States. Fatigued truck drivers who fell asleep at the wheel, along with drivers who suffered heart attacks while driving, caused 12% of fatal crashes in which truck drivers were at fault, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Large Truck Crash Causation Study.

Truck drivers and the companies that employ them have a legal responsibility to comply with HOS rules and to recognize when drivers are too fatigued to continue driving -- even if HOS rules would let them. They just shouldn't be driving at all if they are too tired to be alert and safe on the roads. Eighteen-wheelers require greater stopping distance than passenger cars do because they are so much heavier. That means that a truck driver needs to be awake enough to pay careful attention to traffic conditions at all times -- otherwise, he or she could cause a horrific crash. As a Missouri semi truck accident lawyer, I certainly don't want to see any more wrecks like the one that killed three people and injured fourteen here in St. Louis in July of 2008, or last year’s tragedy in eastern Oklahoma, which caused nine fatalities.

Continue reading "Senator Calls for EOBRs in All Buses and Trucks to ‘Protect All Drivers on the Roads’" »

Last month, I blogged about the
National Transportation Safety Board's Most Wanted List. In the List, the NTSB called for interstate commercial truck and bus companies to install electronic on-board recorders (EOBRs). These recorders automatically keep track of the number of hours a driver has worked and record the date, time, and location.
This electronic recordkeeping helps track semi truck drivers' Hours of Service (HOS) and provides important information for accident reconstruction. As a St. Louis tractor-trailer crash lawyer, I agree with the NTSB that we should take every precaution to make the roads safer for drivers of all kinds of vehicles.

Driver fatigue is a serious problem for the semi truck industry. Federal laws on truck drivers' hours of service require that drivers take eight hours off duty for every twelve hours they drive, in order to prevent them from making errors that cause serious accidents. Federal regulations require drivers to keep a log of their hours of service. These logs are often handwritten, with toll receipts to back up their information, so it has been easy for drivers to falsify this information in order to keep working past the hours of service cutoff. According to Logistics Management contributing editor John Schulz, "drivers’ paper log books … often are derisively referred to … as “comic books” because they are so laughably dishonest. Drivers in the past have often kept two log books -- one for regulators and the other, accurate, one for getting paid for their actual driving time."

Some trucking companies that have good safety records have already voluntarily installed EOBRs in their trucks, taking advantage of their capacity to automate and streamline monitoring of drivers, recordkeeping, and communication. The devices have been credited with improving safety and efficiency beyond just the HOS concern, because they can alert drivers when they are driving too fast, braking too hard or idling too much, and help companies precisely predict shipments' arrivals. Where the large trucking companies see benefits to using EOBRs voluntarily, the Owner-Operator Independent Driver Association opposes their use because they see EOBRs as too costly and a potential privacy violation. As a southern Illinois big rig accident attorney, I can't say that I have a lot of sympathy with the Association’s position, given the potential public safety benefits of EOBRs.

This month, the NTSB has gotten its wish for better oversight -- sort of. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has just set a new rule requiring EOBRs in big rigs, but it only applies to trucks driven for carriers whose compliance reviews reveal HOS violations at or above 10%. The rule will go into effect on June 12, 2012, to give manufacturers time to produce EOBRs to specifications. The FMCSA will consider broadening the rule to encompass more trucking companies later this year.

The carriers that are found to have patterns of HOS violations will have to install EOBRs in all their vehicles for at least two years. Watchers predict that this will affect approximately 5,700 carriers by the end of the rule's first year in effect. This is a higher number than the NTSB had predicted, but it's still only 0.8% of all carriers in the United States. As a Missouri semi truck accident lawyer, I applaud the FMCSA for going this far, but clearly it needs to go further. According to the FMCSA, there were about 100 fatalities caused by semi truck driver fatigue in 2007. One hundred people lost their lives because truck drivers were too tired to be on the road.

Continue reading "Federal Agency Requires Tighter Oversight of Tired Truck Drivers" »

As a Missouri big rig accident attorney, I was interested to see that in February, the National Transportation Safety Board released its updated "Most Wanted List" of needed improvements to the nation's transportation systems. It named the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration as being unacceptably slow in its response to regulating tractor-trailer drivers and carriers on several important safety issues. The agency's slowness to respond to these issues allows motor carriers to employ semi drivers who are medically unfit or otherwise unqualified for the job, and put unsafe vehicles on the road, opening the possibility of terrible accidents that could cost innocent people their lives.

The NTSB is calling for the FMCSA to crack down on motor carriers that hire unqualified drivers and use vehicles with mechanical problems, by preventing these carriers from operating at all. In addition, the NTSB wants electronic onboard data recorders (EOBR) in trucks to help reconstruct accidents when they occur and to gather accurate data about drivers' hours of service, or how long drivers spend on the road. Truck drivers are subject to hours-of-service regulations to ensure that they are not driving while fatigued and thus prone to making mistakes and causing accidents. But according to The Trucker, the FMCSA is considering a rule that requires EOBRs only for two-year periods for carriers that historically have not complied with regulations or have had high accident rates. NTSB Chair Deborah Hersman said that making the EOBR requirement punitive would not make the roads significantly safer, since it would track the hours of service compliance for just 930 of 700,000 carriers -- 0.13%.

The NTSB would prefer that every truck carry an EOBR, so hours of service can be tracked and problems corrected before they lead to a serious accident. As a southern Illinois tractor trailer accident lawyer, I strongly agree. Our system currently relies on truckers to be honest about their hours, but evidence from trucking accident trials shows that many are not. Driving while fatigued is emerging as a serious distracted-driving issue for all drivers, not just truckers -- but it’s a particularly serious issue for truck drivers under pressure to avoid financial penalties for late deliveries. By tracking hours-of-service violations for all carriers, regulators can take unsafe carriers off the road before they can cause devastating accidents. The NTSB is right to push for tighter controls on factors that could cause such accidents.

Continue reading "NTSB Faults Trucking Regulator for Slow Response to Important Safety Issues" »

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the federal agency that regulates the trucking industry, has highlighted sleep apnea as a growing concern in commercial truck safety. So I was interested, as a Missouri semi truck accident attorney, to see a Feb. 22 piece on the same topic from Business Insurance. A 2002 study by the FMCSA found that 26% of the nation’s 3.4 million commercial drivers suffer from sleep apnea. That’s substantially higher than the estimated 6.62% of all Americans who have the disorder. This is a concern for safety groups, trucking companies and insurance companies because sleep apnea robs its victims of sleep, leaving them woozy in the daytime. The FMCSA and others are concerned that this could lead to increased numbers of serious accidents caused by sleep-deprived commercial drivers.

Sleep apnea is a breathing disorder in which the neck muscles relax too much during sleep, causing interruptions in breathing that wake the patient up. It isn’t clear why truckers have such a high rate of sleep apnea, but groups at risk for the disorder include people with a body mass index of 30 or greater (considered obese), people with wide necks and men, especially older men. Because symptoms appear while the patient is unconscious, doctors believe many thousands of people suffer from it without realizing it, often for years. This presents a problem for regulators and trucking companies trying to identify drivers at risk for a sleep apnea-related accident. Another problem is that truck drivers don’t necessarily want to be screened or admit they have the problem, for fear of losing their jobs. Truckers oppose a proposed FMCSA rule requiring screening, but one trucking company in the article said its own diagnosis and screening program substantially reduced crashes.

As a southern Illinois tractor-trailer accident lawyer, I strongly support the proposed federal rule that would make sleep apnea screening mandatory. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has said that sleepy driving causes thousands of crashes a year. It also said shift workers who drive at night or work long hours -- both of which apply to truck drivers -- are at special risk. Sleep deprivation can actually reduce drivers’ reaction times and focus, just like alcohol. This is risky even in an economy sedan -- but in a large truck, it can be catastrophic. When the massive size and weight of a commercial truck hits a smaller car of truck, it brings much more force to the crash than another car would. All too often, the result is death or catastrophic injury to the people in the smaller vehicle, regardless of who was at fault.

Continue reading "Insurers and Federal Regulators Raise Concerns About Sleep Apnea in Truckers" »

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.

Continue reading "Federal Department of Transportation Bans Texting While Driving by Truckers" »

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.

Continue reading "Federal Regulators Hear Comments on Stricter Trucker Hours of Service Rules " »

As a St. Louis tanker truck accident lawyer, I was disappointed to read about a recent federal ruling that takes away local municipalities’ ability to control how trucks use their roads. According to a Nov. 16 article from the Boston Globe, the National Transportation Safety Board ruled that the City of Boston was not legally entitled to order trucks carrying hazardous materials to use a route well outside of the city during daytime. That prompted a lawsuit from the American Trucking Associations, which led the Massachusetts Highway Department to ask the federal agency for clarification. In its ruling, the NTSB said only it can approve hazardous materials routes, in cooperation with state agencies.

The new trucking rules arose from Boston’s Big Dig project. Trucks couldn’t use the project’s tunnels, so they ended up using major thoroughfares within the city itself. This prompted safety worries, especially after a fuel tanker overturned in a traffic circle in 2007, spilling flaming gasoline down the street. To address those concerns, the city revoked all permits allowing trucks carrying hazardous materials to use city roads during the daytime, except to make local deliveries. Semi trucks were still allowed to drive city roads at night, the Globe said, but were limited to specified interstate and local routes during the day. For trucks carrying fuel from a north Boston fuel depot to the South Coast, this route meant a 40-mile detour that cost extra time and fuel. The city argued that highways are better suited for pass-through traffic, but critics said it was merely exporting the risk to the suburbs.

As a Missouri tractor-trailer accident attorney, I am disappointed by this decision. Cities may still develop rules on transporting hazardous materials through their streets, but this decision means they have to go through a state agency like MODoT, and ultimately submit their plans to the NTSB for approval. This puts extra layers of bureaucracy in the way of safety. Naturally, local governments that deal with transportation and infrastructure issues every day are better positioned to make these decisions than federal regulators. I also believe convenience to truck drivers -- the reason for the route through Boston -- should not trump safety concerns. In a high-density urban area with narrow streets, the potential for serious damage in any trucking accident is very high. That’s especially true when the truck is carrying a hazardous material like asphalt, gasoline or fuels, which can cause an explosion or a major fire in the blink of an eye.

Continue reading "Federal Safety Board Says Cities May Not Make Rules About Hazmat Trucking Routes" »

The length of truckers’ on-the-road shifts is an important issue for Missouri big rig accident attorneys like me. Research and common sense show that driving for very long hours leaves drivers tired, and very tired drivers can get into serious accidents -- or resort to unsafe stimulants to stay awake. So I was pleased to see an Oct. 27 article from the Associated Press reporting that safety officials under the Obama administration has abandoned an effort by the Bush administration to extend the hours of service allowable for truckers. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has not promised to return to the previous rule, but signed an agreement to revise it.

The AP says that for 60 years, truckers could drive for no more than 10 hours per day. The rules also required at least 50 hours off-duty at the end of a week before truckers could return to work. Under the Bush administration, however, new rules were proposed that would allow up to 11 hours of driving at once, with off-duty rest periods of at least 34 hours. The move pleased the trucking industry, but not safety advocates, who include Public Citizen, Parents Against Tired Truckers and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. A federal appeals court struck down the new rules twice, but officials under the Bush administration simply reinstated it each time. The FMCSA says it will propose a new rule in the next nine months.

As a southern Illinois semi truck crash lawyer, I am extremely pleased to see that the FMCSA is willing to reconsider this decision. Allowing that extra hour of driving may help trucking companies generate a little more profit, but it can lead to very fatigued drivers. And tired drivers, unfortunately, have been shown to be involved in crashes more often, putting everyone traveling around them at serious risk. (It also endangers the truckers and shortens their time off, which was probably not lost on the Teamsters.) According to Public Citizen, fatigue is a direct cause of 15% of fatal tractor-trailer accidents and a factor in up to 40% of crashes involving heavy trucks. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told the AP that his agency believes “starting over and developing a rule that can help save lives” is the best path -- an indication that its priorities are straight.

Continue reading "Obama Administration Agrees to Reverse Increase in Truckers Allowable Hours of Driving" »

Trucking regulations are an important part of my job as a St. Louis semi truck accident attorney. Trucking companies and truckers are required to follow certain safety rules, but after many accidents, an investigation shows that they outright ignored or bent those rules. That’s why I was pleased to see an Oct. 23 article from TheTrucker.com announcing that a “strike force” from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has taken action against 84 trucking and bus companies for violations of drug and alcohol safety rules, including failure to test drivers and employing drivers who failed a drug test. The sweep also took away the commercial drivers’ licenses of 77 drivers. The FMCSA regulates interstate trucking as well as interstate bus and school bus companies.

According to the article, FMCSA regulators spent ten days in September examining the drivers’ drug and alcohol safety records. One goal of the program was to find drivers who simply jump from company to company to avoid taking drug and alcohol tests or federal reporting requirements. The drivers caught in the sweep lost their commercial licenses right away and will probably be fined, TheTrucker.com said; they may also face other civil penalties. The trucking and busing companies face enforcement actions that could include fines or even a shutdown notice. Both the companies and the drivers will have a chance to contest the violations and the amounts of any fines assessed.

As a Missouri tractor-trailer accident attorney, I am delighted to see federal regulators taking action against companies and drivers who are in flagrant violation of drug and alcohol safety laws. As I wrote here in August, a government study found that more than 1,000 trucking companies ordered by the FMCSA to shut down for safety violations simply changed their names and kept operating, suggesting that the FMCSA has a lot of work to do to clean house. Skipping drug and alcohol testing -- or intentionally employing drivers with records that should make them unemployable -- may be attractive to trucking companies that want to save a few bucks, but those laws are in place to protect the public. Nobody should control a ten-ton, 65-mph vehicle while drunk or high. When a substance-abusing driver hits a smaller vehicle, the result is likely to be a highly preventable tragedy.

Continue reading "Sweep Takes 77 Commercial Truck Drivers Off the Road for Drug and Alcohol Violations" »

Because I am a Missouri trucking accident attorney, I keep an eye on any safety changes that come out of the National Transportation Safety Board, the federal agency that regulates interstate trucking. That’s how I came across an article on Today’sTrucking.com Oct. 20 saying that federal safety regulators are considering a new rule intended to prevent accidents caused by truck drivers hitting the accelerator when they are trying to hit the brakes. According to the article, the NTSB’s decision comes after studying five accidents believed to have been caused by “pedal misapplication,” including a 2005 school bus crash in Liberty, Missouri.

To address this concern, the NTSB has asked the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to consider a rule that all new heavy vehicles -- mainly semi trucks and school buses -- must come with a brake transmission shift interlock device installed. These devices, which are already standard on lighter passenger vehicles, require drivers to depress the brakes in order to shift a vehicle with an automatic transmission out of Park. The NTSB hopes this requirement will cut down on incidents of unexpected acceleration caused by drivers’ mistakes. It also asked the NHTSA to analyze the pedal configurations in heavy vehicles to see if design defects can affect accidents, and provide pedal design guidelines to manufacturers.

As a St. Louis big rig accident lawyer, I’m always pleased to see regulatory action directed at preventing the deaths and serious injuries a semi truck crash can cause. In the Liberty bus accident the NTSB examined, the driver allegedly accelerated when she meant to brake, killing two people in other vehicles and injuring 23 of the children on board, two critically. In another Missouri crash the agency studied, a transit bus in Normandy, Missouri accidentally accelerated right after letting passengers off, killing four pedestrians. When heavy vehicles -- officially defined as vehicles over 10,000 pounds -- accelerate out of control, they have the power to crush everything in their path, including pedestrians and other motorists. Pedal misapplication may not be common, but when the results are this serious, it’s worth tweaking the design of heavy trucks to prevent them.

Continue reading "Federal Regulators May Require Device Requiring Truckers to Apply Brakes During Ignition" »

More than 1,000 trucking companies have avoided a federal regulator’s order to shut down and pay fines for safety violations by simply changing their names, the Associated Press reported July 30. The revelation comes from a study by the Government Accountability Office of “motor carriers” -- trucking and bus companies -- regulated by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. The agency orders hundreds to shut down every year for safety violations including failure to drug- and alcohol-test drivers, lack of licenses and using unsafe equipment. But according to the report, hundreds of companies stayed in business by simply changing their names and reapplying for a federal license using the same owners’ names, addresses, contact information, employees and equipment.

The report found at least 20 out of 220 bus companies and 1,073 out of an unknown number of trucking companies believed to be “reincarnated” under new names after discipline in 2007 and 2008. In fact, more than 500 were still operating as of late July. The GAO suggested that the number of reincarnations may be even higher because its study only looked at exact matches of addresses and other information, not at close matches or similar information. The situation poses a serious safety threat, a GAO official said, because these carriers were ordered out of business for potentially deadly safety violations. As an example, the article cited a 2008 bus crash in which 17 people died after a tire blew, forcing the bus off the road. The blown tire was a retreaded tire mounted on a steering axle, in violation of federal law. The bus company in that case was reincarnated under a new name after being taken off the road two months earlier by federal regulators.

As a Missouri tractor-trailer accident attorney, I am less shocked at this report than other readers may have been. Because I work every day with accident victims, I’m sorry to say that I know how far some trucking companies are willing to compromise safety in order to save a few dollars. Truck drivers are required to keep logs of when they drive and rest so they don’t drive when over-tired; trucking companies almost routinely encourage them to lie on those logs if necessary to make deliveries on time and avoid losing money. I have also seen cases of trucking companies sending their drivers out without inspections of brakes and other essential equipment; and knowingly hiring drivers without a valid commercial license. These safety violations break the law and raise the risk of a deadly big rig accident, endangering the innocent drivers and passengers who happen to be sharing the road with the trucks.

Continue reading "Federal Report Finds Hundreds of Trucking Companies Ordered to Shut Down Still Driving With New Names" »

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn is considering whether to increase the speed limit for semi trucks from 55 mph to 65 mph, the Bloomington Pantagraph reported May 18. Both houses of the Illinois Legislature passed the measure, but the governor can still veto it. If he does not, big rigs and tractor-trailers would be allowed to legally travel at the same speed as passenger cars in Illinois.

This is actually the fourth try by the Legislature to raise trucking speed limits. Three similar bills have already passed, but disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich vetoed each one. The current governor did not comment to the Pantagraph, but opponents of the measure argue that trucks already violate the speed limit, and a raised speed limit would just lead to even higher speeds and possibly more trucking accidents in Illinois. Supporters, by contrast, say trucks are safer when they move at the same speed as cars. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Illinois is one of 12 states that set lower speed limits for trucks, not including Missouri.

As a Southern Illinois trucking lawyer, I am very interested in trucking safety issues, so I was curious about which side’s safety arguments were more accurate. A bit of research suggests that speeding is not a major safety issue for large commercial tractor-trailers, at least as compared to private drivers. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, of all drivers involved in fatal crashes in 2007, truck drivers were the least likely to speed (or drive drunk). However, the agency also reported that truck drivers in fatal crashes were more likely to have a previous speeding conviction than car drivers (24% to 19%), suggesting that enforcement of speed limits might be better for truckers.

In any case, while drivers are more than justified in being afraid of speeding semi trucks, speed is not the main safety issue with big rigs. The trouble is the trucks’ much greater size and weight. Even a relatively slow-speed crash between a car and a truck can cause catastrophic injuries to the people inside the car. Here in Missouri, where we have no difference in speed limits applied to passenger vehicles and trucks, our number of trucking accidents is basically even with that of Illinois -- we had 3% of America’s trucking accidents in 2007, while Illinois had 3.2%. As a St. Louis tractor-trailer accident attorney who would like to see fewer crashes in every state, I don’t believe Illinois will see much of a change if Quinn does sign the bill.

The Lowe Law Firm represents clients in Missouri and southern Illinois who were seriously injured in a serious accident with a large truck. If you were hurt or lost a loved one in an accident you believe was caused by a trucker’s or trucking company’s carelessness, we can help. In a Missouri semi truck accident lawsuit, you can claim all of your losses related to the accident, including financial losses like hospital bills and lost income, as well as compensation for an injury, pain, disability or wrongful death. To set up a free consultation and learn more about your rights, please contact our firm online or call us toll-free at 1-877-678-3400.

A nonprofit group lobbying for stricter safety regulations on large tractor-trailers launched a campaign May 4 to ensure that trucks don’t get any larger. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Along for the Ride blog said the Truck Safety Coalition is opposing a proposal in Congress that would increase the legal limit for how much trucks may weigh. At a press conference in Washington, D.C., the coalition also announced its yearly study of truck-related fatalities in each state per 100,000 people. Missouri was the sixteenth deadliest state, with 2.31 deaths for every 100,000 people in 2007, while Illinois ranked 37th with 1.2 deaths per 100,000.

According to the coalition’s press release (PDF), the proposed legislation the coalition opposes would raise the legally acceptable weight of a semi truck from the current 80,000 pounds to 97,000 pounds. The heavier trucks would have to have a sixth axle and increased braking capability, the post noted. (For comparison, a 2009 Honda Civic weighs between 2,600 and 2,900 pounds, and a Ford F-150 pickup truck weighs between 4,500 and 5,500 pounds.) The coalition backs a different federal bill that would freeze the 80,000-pound weight limit and the 53-foot length limit currently in effect. A poll released by the organization shows that 80% of Americans believe larger trucks would make our roads less safe.

Those Americans are right. As a Missouri trucking injury lawyer, I’ve written several times on this blog about the deadly consequences of a weight mismatch between trucks and ordinary vehicles. When a passenger vehicle collides with a semi truck weighing ten to thirty times as much, the laws of physics ensure that the passenger vehicle will take almost all of the damage. Regardless of who was at fault, the people inside that car are statistically likely to die or sustain very serious injuries, including brain damage, paralysis and severe burn injuries. Truckers themselves are injured in fewer than 10% of trucking accidents, a figure that includes single-vehicle truck crashes.

As a St. Louis tractor-trailer crash attorney, I welcome the Truck Safety Coalition’s efforts. The Lowe Law Firm represents people throughout Missouri and southern Illinois who have lost a loved one or been left with permanent disabilities after a crash with a large truck. Frequently, our clients’ medical worries and grief are compounded by financial problems, as six-figure medical bills roll in while victims are physically unable to work. With Missouri semi truck accident lawsuits, we help victims win back that money from trucking companies and truck drivers who hurt them with their careless actions.

If this sounds like your family’s situation, The Lowe Law Firm can help. To learn more at a free, confidential consultation, please contact us online or call toll-free at 1-877-678-3400 today.

A truck driver was injured Jan. 13 after his tractor-trailer rolled over on Highway 60, the Joplin Globe reported. The driver was in Lawrence County at about 1:21 p.m. when he apparently fell asleep, according to the Missouri Highway Patrol. He lost control of his truck and swerved off and onto the road before swerving off again and overturning the tractor-trailer. No other vehicles were involved, but the trucker was taken to the hospital.

Truck drivers sleeping behind the wheel is more common than you might think, unfortunately. Truckers, particularly long-haul truckers, have to meet strict delivery deadlines, and clients may dock their pay or their companies' pay for late delivery. That means truckers are under pressure to keep driving, even when they're so fatigued that they're no longer able to drive an 80,000-pound vehicle safely. Some just drive while sleepy; others may turn to illegal drugs to stay awake. In either case, the result can be unsafe driving that exposes the motorists around them to serious injuries or even death.

The federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which is responsible for regulating interstate trucking, recognizes this danger. That's why they limit the number of hours per day that truckers may drive and require them to keep logs showing that they've complied. Unfortunately, the logs are self-reported, and many truckers simply lie on them -- often with implicit approval or explicit orders from their trucking companies. This may help trucking companies keep their profits high, but it's a very real threat to everyone else on the road. Most truckers who follow these illegal and unsafe practices are never caught -- until they kill or gravely injure someone in a serious Missouri commercial truck accident.

Given that this accident happened in early afternoon, we are all lucky that only one vehicle was involved. When trucks hit passenger cars, trucks or SUVs, they can instantly kill the people inside or cause very serious injuries, including brain damage, paralysis and severe burns. If the accident is caused by the truck driver's (or trucking company's) own carelessness, victims have the right to hold them legally and financially responsible with a Missouri trucking accident lawsuit. If you or someone you love was in this type of accident and you'd like to know more about your rights and your legal options, The Lowe Law Firm can help. Our experienced truck accident lawyers handle claims in southern Illinois and throughout Missouri. To set up a free consultation today, please contact us through our Web site.

The corruption scandal surrounding Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has prompted a series of news reports explaining the state’s history of corruption, such as this one from Time magazine. As the article points out, Blagojevich took office directly after former Gov. George Ryan, who was convicted on felony corruption and fraud charges similar to the ones Blagojevich may soon face. The scandal that brought Ryan down was especially interesting to me as a Missouri and Illinois trucking accident lawyer: Ryan was accused of selling commercial truck driver’s licenses to unqualified candidates who hadn’t passed the licensing test -- and sometimes didn’t even speak enough English to take it.

That was the case with truck driver Ricardo Guzman, the recipient of one of the illegal licenses. According to this editorial, Guzman was driving a big rig on I-94 near Milwaukee when a metal assembly came loose from the rear of his semi. Other truck drivers on the road tried to warn him of the problem, but Guzman didn’t speak enough English to understand them. As a result of his inaction, the metal piece came loose from his truck on the highway and hit the fuel tank of a Chicago family’s minivan, causing a flash fire that killed the six children inside and left their parents with severe burns.

All told, the editorial says, authorities believe the illegal trucker licenses caused 55 accidents and 11 deaths. The bribes used to buy the false licenses helped elect Ryan to the governorship -- and later helped send him to federal prison. Unfortunately, the licenses sold by Ryan’s office aren’t the only false truck driving licenses out there. As the Chicago Tribune reported in 2007, the federal government believes there could be as many as 15,000 valid commercial truck driving licenses obtained through bribery or fraud.

A large truck is a ten-ton machine that can literally crush smaller vehicles in an accident; it should never be given to an amateur. Truck drivers with fraudulent licenses endanger themselves and everyone around them. And when they cause a serious trucking accident, they -- and the trucking companies that knowingly benefited from the fraud -- should be held legally responsible for the results. The Lowe Law Firm represents clients in Missouri and southern Illinois who have been seriously harmed in a crash caused by a truck driver’s bad decisions, whether or not the driver had a valid commercial license. If you or someone you love is in this position and you’d like to learn more about your options, you can contact our firm online for a free initial consultation.

Rain, fog, sleet or snow can make driving dangerous. And for drivers who share the road with tractor-trailers, bad weather conditions can be downright deadly.

According to a 2007 analysis of the Large Truck Crash Causation Study released by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, truckers who were driving too fast for the road conditions was an associated factor in 23 percent of crashes.

However, FMCSA regulations (49 C.F.R. § 392.14) require drivers to use “extreme caution” in hazardous conditions. In addition, many state commercial driver's licenses require truck driver to slow down by as much as a third during rain or other poor weather conditions.

There’s a good reason for mandating that semi drivers slow down in bad weather: It takes much longer to stop an 18-wheeler. Cars weigh an average of 3,500 pounds, while large commercial trucks (known as semis, eighteen wheelers, and tractor-trailers) can weigh up to 80,000 pounds with their loads. Drivers and passengers in cars suffer the majority of injuries when they collide with large trucks because of the weight difference between the two types of vehicles. In car-truck collisions, 98 percent of the fatalities were persons in the cars.

If you or a loved one has been injured or a family member has been killed in a collision with a large truck, we urge you to contact The Lowe Law Firm. Our trucking-accident attorneys will find out whether the truck driver, trucking company, or trailer owner is responsible for the accident. If so, we will then seek compensation for future and other related medical expenses, future and other affected wages, pain and suffering, disability and/or other related damages.

Federal regulations known as hours of service rules dictate the length of time a truck driver can work without taking a break.

The hours of service regulations are issued by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. The rules limit the number of daily and weekly hours truck and bus drivers spend driving and working. The rules also outline the minimum time allowed for breaks between shifts.

Under the current rules, a truck driver must be allowed ten hours off duty if he or she has been behind the wheel for more than 11 hours or has been on-duty for 14 hours. The 14-hour limit allows truckers to take care of non-driving duties such as unloading and loading, fueling up and waiting for vehicle inspections.

In addition to the daily limit, the rules also ban driving if the trucker has been on-duty for 60 hours for seven consecutive days or 70 hours for 8 consecutive days.

The hours of service rules are aimed at reducing driver fatigue. Too many hours behind the wheel disrupts the driver’s circadian rhythm, the internal 24-hour biological clock that regulates sleep and wakefulness. Lengthy drive times also contribute to sleep deprivation. When a driver spends an inordinate amount of time focusing on one task, performance fatigue also sets in.

Unfortunately, fatigue continues to be a major cause of deadly crashes and efforts to help bus and truck drivers remain alert also make the roads safer.

Despite rules promulgated by the Department of Transportation, truck drivers often drive too many hours without the proper amount of sleep. To get around these regulations, some truck drivers falsify travel logs and fail to properly maintain their trucks and trailers. When such reckless behaviors result in a collision that causes injuries or deaths, the driver and the company are liable. An experienced truck accident attorney will be able to obtain the evidence to prove the truck driver and the company are at fault. GPS tracking data can prove the driver and company violated hours of service rules.

If you or a loved one has been injured or a family member has been killed in a collision with a large truck, we urge you to contact the Lowe Law Firm by calling 877-678-3400 or filling out our online contact form.

Last month, a House subcommittee held a hearing that examined the impact of existing truck weight and length regulations on safety, highway infrastructure, and interstate commerce.

The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure received testimony on July 9. The witnesses included the executive director of the Federal Highway Administration, commissioners from state highway transportation departments, a teamster’s driver, an independent driver, industry representatives and safety advocates.

Although there are some exceptions, federal regulations typically limit truck weight to a maximum of 20,000 pounds for single axles, 34,000 pounds for tandem axles, and impose a total Gross Vehicle Weight limit of 80,000 pounds.

The summary prepared by the subcommittee before testimony began noted that in 2006, nearly 5,000 people were killed in crashes involving large trucks. It also noted that in the 2000 Comprehensive Truck Size and Weight Study, the Federal Highway Administration calculated whether the higher taxes that trucks pay cover the wear-and-tear they inflict on highways. It found:

“The most common combination of vehicles, those registered at weights between 75,000 and 80,000 pounds, now pay only 80 percent of their share of Federal highway costs and combinations registered between 80,000 and 100,000 pounds pay only half their share of Federal highway costs.”

In addition to the impact on infrastructure, the question of whether to permit bigger and longer trucks on the highways pits safety advocates against representatives of the trucking industry. Safety advocates argue that bigger trucks are too dangerous. The trucking industry claims larger trucks are needed to meet increased cargo demands.

Even if the truck weights and lengths remain unchanged it doesn’t mean the roads are safe. Unfortunately, trucking companies are pressured to cut costs, and drivers—who are typically paid by the mile—are under financial pressure to driver longer hours, faster than the speed limit, and faster than the road conditions allow. As a result, people are killed or hurt in truck accidents.
If you or a loved one has been injured or a family member has been killed in a collision with a large truck, we urge you to contact the Lowe Law Firm by calling 877-678-3400 or filling out our online contact form.

Our trucking-accident attorneys will find out whether the truck driver, trucking company, or trailer owner is responsible for the accident. If so, we will then seek compensation for future and other related medical expenses, future and other affected wages, pain and suffering, disability and/or other related damages.

Before a truck driver can call it a day, an inspection report on the semi must be completed. According to Part 396 of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, trucking companies must require their drivers to detail how critical pieces of equipment operated during the day such as:

• Service brakes including trailer brake connections

• Parking (hand) brake

• Steering mechanism

• Lighting devices and reflectors

• Tires

• Horn

• Windshield Wipers

• Rear vision mirrors

• Coupling devices

• Wheels and rims

• Emergency equipment

If a defect is found that is likely to affect the safety of the rig, trucking companies are required to fix it before the tractor-trailer is allowed back on the road.

The daily inspections, which must be kept for 18 months, are important. An 80,000 truck with defective brakes barreling down the road at 70 miles per hour is a deadly weapon.

If you have been hurt or a loved one has been hurt or died as a result of a truck driver's carelessness, contact The Lowe Law Firm Missouri/Illinois trucking-accident lawyers online or by calling 877-678-3400.

Large commercial trucks, also known as 18-wheelers, semis, and tractor-trailers, account for more than their share of serious injuries and traffic deaths on America's highways. According to the National Center for Statistics and Analysis , large trucks are responsible for 12 percent of all traffic fatalities, even though only 3 percent of all registered vehicles are trucks and trucks account for only 7 percent of vehicle miles traveled.

As a result, big rigs are heavily regulated. The federal rules, found at 49 C.F.R. Section 392, cover a variety of issues including driver impairment, drug and alcohol use, speed limits, equipment maintenance and cargo distribution.

According to Section 392.3, a trucker may not drive if his or her ability or alertness is impaired by fatigue or illness.

Section 392.4 prohibits possession or use of amphetamines, narcotics and any other drug that might render the driver unsafe. Furthermore, a trucker may not drive while using prescription drugs unless the doctor has advised that the medication will not affect his or her driving ability.

A driver may not drink alcohol within four hours before hitting road or driving while under the influence. Section 392.5 also prohibits drivers from possessing wine, beer or alcohol unless it is part of a shipment.

According to Section 392.7, the following parts to be in good working order before a tractor-trailer can be driven: service brakes, parking brake, steering mechanism, lighting devices and reflectors, tires, horn, windshield wipers, rear-vision mirrors and coupling devices.

When it comes to cargo, Section 392.8 requires that the load must be adequately distributed and secured.

If a truck driver or commercial carrier fails to follow these common-sense rules, innocent motorists can get hurt or even killed.

If you have been hurt or a loved one has been hurt or died as a result of a truck driver's carelessness, contact The Lowe Law Firm Missouri/Illinois trucking-accident lawyers online or by calling 877-678-3400.

A St. Louis truck driving school that allegedly engaged in a bribing and testing scheme to ensure their students passed the commercial driving test, trial began on Monday.

Mustafa Redzic, the owner of Bosna Driving School, allegedly promised his students -- many of whom were Bosnian immigrants -- that they’d be able to obtain a commercial drivers license in a few days rather than several weeks, that their ability to read English would not be a problem and even that a lack of driving skill wouldn’t stand in the way.

Prosecutors claim that in return for the $3,000 tuition, Redzic drove his students to his school and that he bribed a private licensing facility, Sikeston-based Commercial Drivers Training Academy, to ensure the students passed the written and driving portions of the test. Nearly $2 million and hundreds of students were allegedly involved.

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

“Redzic himself grew worried about some students, he later told investigators – students he knew were hazards behind the wheel of what he called an ‘80,000 pound bullet.’”

The charges stem from a 2004 investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. The task force was looking for terrorists who might turn trucks hauling hazardous materials into bombs. What they uncovered – allegedly unqualified drivers allowed to barrel down the highway in an 18-wheeler – is also deadly problem. But it isn’t an isolated one.

As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch notes, a 2002 report by the U.S. Transportation Department warned that state and federal regulations were not enough to protect against the “alarming threat” posed by people who obtained fake truck driver licenses.

Because of the bribery scandals, Missouri ordered 2,500 commercial license holders to retake the test. The state legislature has also moved to end the practice of allowing private facilities to administer the commercial driving test.

If you or a loved one has been injured or a family member has been killed in a collision with a large truck, we urge you to contact The Lowe Law Firm. Our trucking-accident attorneys will find out whether the truck driver, trucking company, or trailer owner is responsible for the accident. If so, we will then seek compensation for future and other related medical expenses, future and other affected wages, pain and suffering, disability and/or other related damages.

An initial free consultation with The Lowe Law Firm attorneys for victims of trucking or truck related accidents is available. Appointments can take place at our office, at the hospital, or in the privacy of your home.

Contact The Lowe Law Firm Missouri/Illinois trucking-accident lawyers online or by calling 877-678-3400.

Visit our Truck-Accident Information Center.

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration announced on Feb. 15, the that the public comment period on truck drivers' hours-of-service interim final rule was extended until March 17, 2008.

The interim rule would allow trucking companies and their drivers up to 11 hours of driving time within a 14-hour, non-extendable window from the start of the work day, followed by 10 consecutive off-duty hours.

The interim rule replaced one that was rejected by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. On July 16, the court tossed out a similar rule that would have increased driving time from ten hours to eleven hours with an optional 34-hour restart provision. As I noted on Feb. 10, this new rule should also be rejected.

If you or a loved one has been injured or a family member has been killed in a collision with a large truck, we urge you to contact The Lowe Law Firm. Our trucking-accident attorneys will find out whether the truck driver, trucking company, or trailer owner is responsible for the accident. If so, we will then seek compensation for future and other related medical expenses, future and other affected wages, pain and suffering, disability and/or other related damages.

An initial free consultation with The Lowe Law Firm attorneys for victims of trucking or truck related accidents is available. Appointments can take place at our office, at the hospital, or in the privacy of your home.

Contact The Lowe Law Firm Missouri/Illinois trucking-accident lawyers online or by calling 877-678-3400.

Visit our Truck-Accident Information Center.

The number of hours a truck driver in interstate commerce can drive is governed by the federal hours of service regulations. The comment period on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s interim rule on the hours-of-service regulation will end on Feb. 15. The interim rule went into effect on Dec. 27. It permits 11 hours of driving with an optional 34-hour restart provision.

The interim rule replaced one that was rejected by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. On July 16, the court tossed out a similar rule that would have increased driving time from ten hours to eleven hours with an optional 34-hour restart provision.

The latest proposed rule should also be rejected. Several studies have shown that trucking accidents spike between the tenth and eleventh hours of driving. Tired drivers are a major cause of trucking accidents in this country. Instead of protecting the public, this rule serves only to lengthen the driving day so that that trucking companies can make more money. Unfortunately, it is the innocent motorist involved in a truck-car collision who will wind up paying the highest price.

A federal rule proposed on Dec. 26 would force new interstate truck drivers to complete classroom and behind-the-wheel training before they’re allowed to receive a commercial license.

The proposal would require truck drivers to receive 120 hours of training, including 44 hours behind the wheel, from an accredited program before they would receive a license. The comment period ends on March 5.

Even though almost 5,000 people were killed in truck accidents in 2006 and 106,000 were injured, the American Trucking Association, the trucking industry’s lobbying group, opposes the rule, Bloomberg News reports.

However, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association not only supports the rule, the organization believes it should be even more rigorous. Todd Spencer, the executive vice president of the organization told Bloomberg News that under the current standards: “There is no training required whatsoever to drive a 40-ton vehicle.”

That concern is echoed by safety groups. Gerald Donaldson, senior research director for the nonprofit, Washington, D.C.-based Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, remarked in an interview with Bloomberg News:

“They get cousin Jake to show them how to operate the rig. Then they learn by doing.”

Because crashes involving tractor trailers are often deadly, and no motorist should have to share the road with an inexperienced driver trying to control an 18,000-pound vehicle, this rule should be viewed as the bare minimum for highway safety.

Truck accidents are frequently caused by speeding trucks. Forcing trucks to slow down, especially in Kansas City, St. Louis and rural highways in Missouri is the aim of one bill currently pending before the Missouri General Assembly.

Introduced by House Minority Leader Paul LeVota, D-Independence, the bill would require tractor trailers to drive ten miles below the posted speed limit on rural interstates, highways, in construction zones and on freeways passing through downtown Kansas City and St. Louis.

In an interview with Land Line Magazine, LeVota’s legislative director Josh Carroll explained that the bill “is an attempt to increase safety on our roads.”

In addition to putting the brakes on speeding trucks, House Bill 1563 also proposes to limit the amount of consecutive time any motorist can be behind the wheel of a vehicle to nine hours.

Speeding, tired truck drivers are dangerous. According to the National Center for Statistics and Analysis, a fourth of the truck drivers involved in fatal collisions had been convicted of speeding and almost 17 percent had been involved in earlier collisions. In 2006, accidents involving large trucks claimed 130 lives in Missouri and 157 in Illinois. Even though this bill would make Missouri’s roads safer, I expect that trucking industry lobbyists will fight it.

A semitrailer truck that failed to slow down for an Illinois construction zone triggered a chain-reaction crash that killed at least three people in rural Illinois, the Rockford Register Star reports.

The accident occurred two days after Christmas on southbound Interstate Hwy. 39 in Lasalle County, Illinois. According to the Illinois State Police, an 18-wheeler approached a construction zone where cars were merging from two lanes into one. The semi didn’t slow down. According the news report, the driver had fallen asleep at the wheel.

The big rig rammed into the back of one car, sending it into the median before rolling over. Unable to stop, the semitrailer then plowed into the back of a car driven by a retired Minnesota couple, Donald W. Rautio, 67, and his wife, Faye C. Rautio, 65. Their car slammed into a fourth car, driven by Caryn J. Casey, 21, which burst into flames. The 18-wheeler then caught fire. Three more vehicles, including a second truck, were swept up into the chain-reaction crash. The Rautios and Casey were killed.

Driver fatigue is a deadly problem. In the weeks to come, investigators will examine whether this tragedy could have been avoided. The Department of Transportation imposes strict regulations on the trucking industries. Truck drivers may not work more than 14 hours in a 24-hour period and then must have ten hours of rest before returning to the road. Both driving and sleep time must be recorded in the driver’s log box. If the log is falsified, a truck’s “black box” or GPS tracking systems may reveal the truth. These are all key pieces of evidence that will be reviewed to determine whether the driver violated DOT regulations when he got behind the wheel on December 27.

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.

In all accidents involving trucks, the truck driver is required to submit to an alcohol and drug test. In my experience, truck drivers have been driving under the influence of stimulants like methamphetamine, Benzedrine, adderall, cocaine, and some are driving under the influence of alcohol.

The Federal Motor Safety Carrier Administration sometimes has random drug test. Truckers, however, can easily cheat on drug tests, according to a U.S. subcommittee investigation. The
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration data indicate that 1.3 to 2.8 percent of commercial drivers randomly tested between 1994 and 2005 tested positive for illegal drugs. However, recently Oregon roadside inspectors collected 500 urine samples from commercial drivers — mostly heavy-truck drivers – and found that approximately 9 to 10% tested positive for illegal drugs.

In February, the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit asked the Government Accountability Office, to conduct an undercover investigation. The investigators invented two trucking companies, produced bogus driver’s licenses and then posed as truckers to test 24 collection sites nationwide. The GAO also interviewed all parties involved in testing, from carrier representatives to federal officials, and analyzed regulations and data.

Investigators used bogus driver’s licenses to gain access to all 24 sites investigated, showing that a drug user could send someone else to take a drug test using fake identification. Twenty-two of the 24 selected sites did not adequately follow the remaining protocols. For example, 75 percent of sites tested didn’t restrict access to items that could be used to change the specimen, such as running water, soap or air freshener.

The GAO found a significant compliance lack among carriers, particularly small carriers and self-employed truckers. More than half of carriers with operating authority are single-truck owner-operators. While they still have to implement a drug and alcohol testing program, they usually use a third-party administrator. That administrator doesn’t have the authority to enforce regulations if drug use is indicated.

According to the National Transportation Safety Board, owner-operators “are in the precarious position of overseeing their own substance abuse program.” Drug testing protocol violations are noted in more than 40 percent of FMCSA’s safety audits conducted since 2003 of carriers that have recently started operations and more than 70 percent of the compliance reviews conducted on carriers in the industry since 2001.

FMCSA’s oversight activities are limited in quantity and scope. Safety audits targeted at new entrants began in 2003 and do not affect carriers in business before then. Such companies can be covered in compliance reviews, but these reviews occur at only about 2 percent of carriers a year, according to FMCSA. In addition, the agency’s oversight does not address compliance by service agents unless there are allegations or complaints.

Even when FMCSA is able to ensure that carriers and others are in compliance with drug testing requirements, the urine test can be subverted. Drug masking products such as adulterants work well and destroy the evidence of their presence. Investigators demonstrated that such products could easily be brought to the sites undetected.

In 2005, the GAO testified that 400 products were marketed to mislead drug tests. Furthermore, the required test covers only five drug categories and it may provide a clean result if a person has not used any of these drugs recently. The GAO will continue examining these recommendations, some of which were proposed by carriers and industry representatives.

This shows the need for the government to be more proactive in enforcing its rights to test truckers for illegal drugs before they cause a serious or fatal accident. It is not hard to design a protocol to prevent a trucker from cheating on a drug test. It just requires simple procedures that are followed with precautions designed to catch truckers intent of avoiding the test. Lax enforcement is the problem and truckers who drive under the influence who admittedly are in the vast minority of truckers must know there is a significant chance they will get caught and lose their livelihood for the regulations to the force and effect that they should.

Truck drivers spend an enormous amount of time behind the wheel of their eighteen wheelers each week, and truck driver fatigue is a major factor in the cause of truck accidents. The length of time that a truck driver can spend behind the wheel trying to make it to his or her destination on time has long been a topic of debate in the trucking industry.

Some truckers claim the federal regulations that went into effect in the past four years with the goal of reducing trucking accidents have actually made matters worse. How long truckers can drive, how long they can rest, and how they should log their time have fueled debate among safety advocates and trucking companies.

For years, drivers have claimed logs are routinely falsified, so there is push now for electronic monitoring devices in trucks that would automatically record drive/stop times. Truckers are not happy about this; one veteran trucker actually had to pull over just 40 miles from his destination because he had driven the maximum of 11 hours already that day. The new law required that he "hang out" for ten hours before driving the last 40 miles of his trip.

One mother, whose son was killed, along with three friends, when a tired trucker fell asleep and rolled his rig over the teenager's car on a Maine highway in 1993, created Parents Against Tired Truckers (PATT). Daphne Izer actually sympathizes with the drivers who work long hours, are stuck on docks for hours waiting to be weighed or unloaded and are not getting paid for that lost time.

Although the logs and electronic monitoring devices are efforts to keep truckers rested and safe, the number of truck-related deaths in the United States is not decreasing. Stories continue to appear in the news such as the 46-year-old truck driver with no violations on his driving record who fell asleep as he sped toward vehicles that were slowing for construction on a crowded South Carolina interstate killing a young mother and her 13-year-old daughter.

Clearly something must be done to make the highways as safe as possible for those traveling the highways with trucks. The trucking industry and various highway safety groups are currently waiting for decisions from the appellate courts regarding the invalidation of the current FSMSCA' regulations allowing trucking to drive longer with less rest. These new regulations even though they were invalidated have been allowed to remain in effect because of a stay entered regarding the district courts declaring the new hours of service regulations invalid.

Something must be done to protect truck drivers and the cars on the roads with them. Since it certainly does not seem that the current FSMCSA headed by the former CEO of a trucking company appointed by the current administration and appointed by none other then George Walker Bush, will do the job that they are supposed to do, hopefully the courts will continue to do their jobs and make sure that truck safety regulations are actually that, regulations that protect the drivers of our nations highways including those who do the difficult job of driving our nations highways for a living.

Tractor trailer accidents can be catastrophic when a truck collides with a car. States are considering various ideas to make the highways safer for cars dealing with trucks.

The following is a list of states that are considering making interstate highways:safer for cars by making truck only lanes:

• Florida:is banning big trucks from the far left lane of I-4 on a 60-mile stretch between Tampa and Orlando.stretches of I-75 and I-95 elsewhere in the state have similar restrictions.

• Georgia: is considering truck-only toll lanes on parts of I-75 northwest of Atlanta and on a 20-mile stretch of the I-285 beltway that surrounds the city..

• Arizona, California, Texas and the Gulf Coast states:are using a grant to study segregating truck and automobile traffic on stretches of I-10.

Missouri, Illinois and Indiana are studying the possibility of adding truck-only lanes on I-70 from Kansas City, Missouri to the Ohio-West Virginia border study is one of six funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation to find ways to reduce congestion and improve freight delivery across the nation.

The $3 million grant will pay for Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio to examine the feasibility and cost of adding two truck lanes in each direction on the 750-mile stretch.. The study likely will begin within a year, said Andrew Dietrick, spokesman for the Indiana Department of Transportation. Among other things, it will explore how to fund such an endeavor. One option could be tolls for trucks using the dedicated lanes.. The lanes would be built specifically for big trucks, which means they could be designed to carry heavier loads than now allowed, which could provide the trucking industry with greater efficiency in moving goods, Dietrick said feasibility study typically is the beginning of a long process that can take years for a highway project to become a reality.

The federal agency is looking for ways to improve safety along the stretch of I-70, where average daily traffic ranges from more than 45,000 to 250,000 vehicles. Average daily truck traffic ranges from 11,000 to a maximum of more than 26,000..By 2035, the average daily traffic will increase to more than 100,000, including an average of 25,000 trucks.

Truckers and the trucking industry generally support exploring options that could ease their travel and improve safety."If they are looking outside of the box to try and help reduce traffic and decrease accidents and fatalities, fantastic," said KeVin Roberts, director of safety and membership for the Indiana Motor Truck Association: "Basically it boils down to trying to separate as much as possible trucks from cars," he said. "The money it will take to make something like that happen is tremendous."

Congestion, though, is an issue for truck drivers, both from a safety (cars can stop more quickly than trucks) and a monetary standpoint, Roberts said traffic backups that leave truck drivers idling in traffic are a financial issue for them, too. "That's how big trucks make money, by moving freight."

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.

Trucker fatigue is a common cause of truck accidents. Drivers of tractor trailers are regulated on the number of hours they can drive by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). In the long battle between the FMCSA and the courts over the FMSCA's attempts to allow truckers to drive longer with and rest less, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on July 24, 2007, voided the FMSCA's new Hours of Service Regulations on procedural grounds.

The American Trucking Associations (ATA) filed a motion with the court on Sept. 6, 2007, asking that the Court keep the current HOS provisions in place for an eight month period, allowing the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) time to issue a new final rule.
On Sept. 21, 2007, FMCSA filed a memorandum with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals asking the court to delay implementing the recent ruling on the HOS regulations governing commercial motor vehicle (CMV) drivers for 12 months. Under the court's Rules, however, the stay only extends 90 days to Dec. 27, 2007.

Maybe the FMSCA will quit trying to allow truckers to drive longer and rest less; based on their past history, however that is doubtful. I know from reading the posts of many truckers, that they are in favor of the new regulations because allows them to work longer and if the are paid by the mile, make more money. I have seen truck drivers in favor of the new regulations make comparisons to nurses who work 12 hour shifts. Anyone who has taken a long car trip knows that it is not necessarily the long hours that can make driving dangerous, it is the monotony that can cause you to not pay attention like you should. I have heard it called highway hypnosis. Because of the tragic results that one tired trucker can cause, I am in favor of the old rules that only allow truckers to work 10 hour days.

A trucker whose tractor trailer was involved in a crash that sent another motorist to the hospital has been charged with first-degree assault for operating his truck with no front brakes. An investigation by the state police Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Unit determined that the truck had no brakes because of leaks. Federal Motor Carrier laws require truckers to conduct pre-trip inspections to ensure the vehicle meets the federal safety guidelines.

Investigators discovered that the front brake shoes were not making contact with the drums, meaning that truck needed twice the distance to stop than under normal conditions. The truck drivers log book had also not been kept up-to-date for several days according to State Police.

The truck driver was charged with felony first-degree assault, felony first-degree reckless endangering, failure to obey a traffic device, improper passing and two federal Motor Carrier Safety violations in connection with the late-night crash

State police spokesman Cpl. John Barnett Jr. said the Truck Driver was operating a 1997 Freightliner tractor trailer about 11:20 p.m. when he passed a 1997 Ford Mustang on the right, hitting the driver’s door. The driver of the car, was wearing a seat belt and had to be extricated from the car and suffered severe internal injuries.

Approximately 5,000 people are killed annually in trucking accidents. In order to reduce the number of traffic fatalities involving large trucks and buses, Congress, in the late 1990's, created the Federal Motor Safety Administration to oversee and regulate the industry. For almost six decades, truckers were guided by rules that prohibited them driving more than 10 hours without 8 hours of rest, and prohibited them from driving more than 60 hours in a consecutive 7 day period. In order to ensure compliance, drivers were required to keep logs of when they drove and when they rested.

In 2003, new regulations were put in effect, where instead of the 10 hour driving limit, truckers can now stay behind the wheel for 11 hours consecutively, but they must rest for 10 hours before driving again. Truckers can also now drive 77 hours in a consecutive 7 day period. Also truckers can now work 15 hours in one day instead of 14, but it allowed the 14 hours to be continuous. Previously a driver could work 15 hours in a day, but had to spend 2 or 3 hours off duty during that 15 hour period.

In 2003 within weeks after the agency introduced its new rules safety advocacy groups sued to prevent their enforcement. In 2004, a three judge panel prohibited the implementation of the law because the agency failed to consider the impact of the rules on the health of drivers.

In 2005, the FMCSA proposed revised rules that called for virtually no change from the previous rule which the courts prohibited enforcement. Safety advocacy groups again sued. Many truckers complained that the new laws prompted drivers to falsify their logs to get around the rules. Congress has held hearings on electronic monitoring devices in May 2007 to investigate whether paper log books are outdated, easy to falsify, and fail to ensure safety. No legislation has yet been introduced regarding this.

Safety advocacy groups blame accidents like one that happened recently in New Jersey where a South Carolina truck driver fell asleep at the wheel and crashed his truck on Interstate 78, killing a New Jersey woman and her 13 year old daughter. Apparently the truck driver fell asleep at the wheel causing the accident.

Until regulations are in place that adequately ensure adequate rest time for the driver and safety for the public, these types of accidents are going to continue to happen with huge liability for the trucking industry and their insurance companies. In addition, until electronic monitoring is mandatory, certain drivers are going to continue to skirt the rules.

The Federal Highway Administration 5,200 deaths from truck accidents loosened its length limitation on what truck drivers call "4-ways", which is a slang term for trucks towing three other trucks in March 2007. Under the old regulation, the limit of 4-ways was 75 feet, but under the new regulations it is now 97 feet.

The Truck Safety Coalition has been pressuring the federal government to reduce the number of truck related deaths. Despite these deaths on the nation's highways as a result of truck accidents, the 97 foot long truck combination was slipped through in the Congressional Highway Funding bill.

Prior to the Federal Highway Administration's enactment of it, truck safety groups raised the obvious questions of the safety. Truck drivers testified to the agency stating that the new rule was absurd, and that even with 75 feet, a tractor trailer with three separate trailers were unstable and that the last trailer tends to sway back and forth.

Despite the opposition by truck safety groups, the Federal Highway and Transportation Administration published the rule allowing it and citing the studies from groups that say that safety concerns from the truck drivers are unfounded.

The next time you are driving down the highway and see a tractor trailer towing three separate trailers, 97 feet long, going 70-75 miles an hour, you can thank the trucking industry and its friends in congress who are more interested in profits than safety.

I was surprised to learn that a recent analysis of of fatal trucking accidents revealed that 25% of truckers involved in fatal truck accidents had been convicted of a criminal offense, that 14 percent had prior drug or alcohol offenses before the accident and that 10% were convicted felons. This is apparently occurs because trucking companies faced with a shortage of experienced drivers find that ex-convicts are an attractive pool of low cost labor. Some states such as Texas are training inmates to be truck drivers upon release.

Upon looking into this further I found that it is legal to hire drivers with a criminal records. While I am in favor of people rehabilitating themselves and becoming productive members of society, this alarming statistic demonstrate that if companies are going to hire drivers with criminal records that their performance must be watched closely by the trucking companies. Maybe they should work for at least a year with an experienced driver with a good safety record and be assigned trucks with more sophisticated tracking systems so that there speed and hours of service can be tracked to make sure they are not driving recklessly in violation of hours of service regulations or speeding.

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.

Under current trucking hours service regulations by the FMCSA, a truck driver can work 12 hours straight, including 8 hours of driving non-stop. In the Missouri truck accident, Doris Edwards slowed for traffic near Kingdom City, Missouri on her way home from a Thanksgiving trip in 2004 when a tractor trailer slammed into her Jeep Cherokee, crushed her vehicle, and sent it down the embankment off Interstate 70, killing her. While the truck driver accepted blame for the accident, he acknowledged the fact that he had been at work in his truck cab for nearly 12 hours and he had been driving non-stop. He did not have any violation of hours of service. In fact, government officials have repeatedly turned down requests by consumer and safety organizations seeking restrictions on the hours of service that truck drivers can perform while driving cross country. In support of the regulations, the Bush administration says that the efforts to deregulate the industry have produced huge savings for businesses and consumers because it has been made faster and cheaper for goods to move across the country. They also claim with little support that without longer work hours, the industry would be forced to put more drivers with little experience behind the wheel.

Advocates of tighter rules say that the administration's record of loosening standards endangers motorists. The fatality rate for truck related accidents remains double those involving only cars. The same advocates note that the weakening rules reversed the course sent by the Clinton administration and has resulted in the federal government missing its own targets for reducing death rates. In implementing this deregulation, the FMCSA has eased rules on truckers' work hours, rejected proposals for electronic monitoring to combat wide-spread cheating on driver's logs, and resisted calls for more rigorous driver training. While many in the trucking industry have applauded this deregulation, the courts have vowed that the deregulation ignores government safety studies and puts the industry's economic interests ahead of public safety.

To advance its agenda of deregulation, the Bush administration has installed industry officials in influential posts. To lead the agency that administers regulations of the trucking industry, President Bush picked Joseph M. Clapp, a former chairman of roadway, a trucking company, to head the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Bush also appointed Michael P. Jackson, a former top official at trucking associations, as deputy secretary of transportation. In addition, Duane Wacklie, a leading political fundraiser and chairman of the American Trucking Association and Walter B. McCormick, Jr., the American Trucking Association's president, served on the Bush-Cheney transition team on transportation matters.

While it is not unusual for administrations to have people familiar with industries they regulate on the boards governing them, it is clear from these appointments, as loosening regulations, that fly in the face of the safety studies that the current administration is more intent on supporting the trucking companies making more money than the safety of individuals on the highways.

The only way this can change is for the public to make their voices known to the FMCSA, as well as their representatives. Once elected politicians and representatives know that this is an issue that is important that their constituents care about, can something can be done to rectify this threat to everyone safety on our nation's highways.

The Bush administration, ignoring statistics demonstrating that a high percentage of truck accidents are caused by tired truck drivers, put new regulations in effect that increase the allowable maximum driving hours from 60 to 77 over 7 consecutive days and 70 to 88 over 8 consecutive days, decreasing the time off required from 10 hours to 8. This increase is the first increase in the number of hours drivers are permitted to work in 60 years. Regulators and the Bush administration also declined to require new drivers to undergo additional training as has been suggested by safety groups.

It is not surprising that these changes in regulations to allow drivers to drive more hours will make more money for trucking companies. The Bush administration has put people in charge of the Department of Transportation who had previous experience in the trucking industry, an industry which has donated $14 million in campaigns to Republicans between 2000 and 2006. The administration justifies these new regulations because they save money for businesses and consumers by making it cheaper to transport goods across the country.

This relaxing of safety regulations in the tortured logic of the Bush administration actually improved safety because by lengthening the number of hours experienced drivers are permitted to work even though they are tired, fewer new and inexperienced drivers are needed. This claim, however, of course is made without any empirical evidence to support it and flies in the face of the fact that tired drivers, whether they are truck or automobile drivers, are more likely to be involved in accidents than drivers who are not tired.

Luckily, safety conscious groups sued to overturn the regulations and succeeded when a three judge panel from the District of Columbia Court of Appeals criticized the FMSCA for ignoring its own evidence that fatigue causes many truck accidents. The opinion stated that "the agency admits that studies show that crash risk increases in the agency words, geometrically after the 8th hour on duty." The court said the new rules are arbitrary and capricious and threw them out.

Not to be thwarted by the courts, one year after the rules were overturned, the FMSCA re-issued them in what is described as almost identical forum. A suit to overthrow these has been brought by public citizen, citizens for reliable and safe highways, teamsters, and other groups. The court heard arguments in early December 2006 and we have yet to hear the results of that lawsuit.

Let's hope that with Democrats taking over the House and Senate, that more consumer oriented safety conscious regulators will enact new regulations, putting the old regulations back in place if the court does not throw out the new regulations.

Truck accidents and auto accidents as well as other deaths dropped substantially in Missouri, Illinois and 14 other states last year. Many states with the reduction in truck accident and auto accident deaths credit stepped up enforcement and education campaigns. Illinois truck accident and automobile accident deaths fell below 1,300, the lowest total since 1924. Road deaths in Illinois have been dropping every year since 2003, when Illinois enacted a law that allowed police to stop motorists solely for not wearing seat belts. According to Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, the drop in trucking accident and automobile accident deaths represented clear and convincing evidence that the law is working and seat belts really do save lives.

In Missouri, truck accident and automobile accident fatalities in 2005/2006 dropped 14.6 percent. Law enforcement officials credit the decline with education efforts and new research initiatives that enable state troopers to focus on areas where crashes most likely occur. Some states that had drops in traffic fatalities cited stiffer drunk driving laws, police checkpoints aimed at aggressive driving, improved highway design, and safety efforts targeting young drivers.

When I see drivers driving without their seat belts, I am amazed at their ignorance of what can happen to them in an automobile accident whether or not it involves a truck. If a car crashes into another vehicle, the deacceleration forces can force a non-belted passenger out through the windshield or the side windows of the vehicle. In addition, if the vehicle rolls over, frequently the passengers are ejected, resulting in severe permanent injuries or death. Also, safety restraints such as shoulder belts, airbags, side curtain airbags, roof pillars to prevent roof crush, all become useless if the passenger is not belted because they are not in the proper position to take advantage of the safety devices built into modern day automobiles. I applaud Illinois in allowing troopers to stop people and give them tickets if they are not wearing their seat belts. The simple clicking of a seat belts with a shoulder harness can prevent severe permanent injuries, death, as well as the social costs of extensive medical bills and the heartbreak of people losing a loved one or having to watch them suffer through extreme pain. My advice is make it automatic when you get in your automobile to put your seat belt on, and set a good example for your children by always making sure they wear their seatbelts and you wear yours.

In my experience in dealing with trucking companies, it is one of the worst kept secrets in the industry that many over-the-road truck drivers falsify the log books that they are required to keep pursuant to federal regulations. In an attempt to address this situation as needed, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration on January 11th proposed federal regulations that would require certain truck and bus companies with a history of serious hours of service violations to be required to install electronic on-board recorders in all of their commercial vehicles for a minimum of two years. The proposed rule would also encourage industry wide use of on-board recording devices which are sometimes referred to as black boxes by providing incentives for voluntary use. This rule would also for the first time mandate that these recorders keep track of hours of service data and location tracking information, such as global positioning systems data. The current federal performance standards for the recorders already in use by trucking fleets date back to 1988 before wide-spread use of GPS, wireless communications were in common use.

As an attorney who practices in the trucking accident area, I personally believe that it is long past due that trucking companies be required to use recorders on their commercial vehicles. This rule is a start by targeting the worst offenders, and providing incentives to encourage industry use of recorders, as well as to update performance standards on the recorders. This type of data in a trucking accident, can lead to objective data to prove who was actually at fault in a truck crash.
The proposed rule requires the use of recorders that track the driver's duty status, identity, date, time and location among carriers against trucking companies who demonstrated a 10% or greater violation rate, for any of the hours regulations as determined by compliance reviews during a two year period. Trucking and bus companies that meet this criteria would have to equip their entire fleets with recorders for a minimum of two years. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration estimated that 930 trucking companies and common carriers and 17,500 drivers would fall under this requirement if the rule took effect as of June 11, 2007.

The FMCSA stated that it would like the recorders to be more common among the 650,000 motor carriers in the United States. The proposed rule also contained another incentive for trucking companies to update their fleets now before the new rule takes effect. Under the proposed rule, once the final rule takes effects it would start a two year time period which newly installed recorders would have to meet the new technical requirements of the rule. Trucking companies that voluntarily install recorders before that time would be allowed to continue using those devices for the life of the truck. According to the FMCSA, the goal is to get more trucks and buses using innovative safety technologies and that on-board recorders that will improve safety on the nation's highways.

The American Trucking Association, a truck driver organization, announced its support of the proposed rule. The ATA stated that it was pleased that the Department of Transportation has taken another step toward assuring future gains in improved highway safety. The ATA President, Bill Graves, stated that "We support this incentive-based approach to the use of electronic on-board recorders. Technology can play a significant role in enhancing road safety and help to ensure the reliability of commercial vehicle operations."

I also support these proposed rules. Under the current hours of service rules, a truck driver can drive as many as 8 uninterrupted hours in a day, and can drive additional hours after a mandated rest. With these liberal regulations, drivers who violate those regulations are a hazard on the road and if it is known that their companies will have objective evidence that they violated these rules, they will be much more likely to comply with the safety based rules.

There are approximately 5,000 deaths annually in truck related accidents and approximately 114,000 injuries sustained in truck accidents. After reading these statistics and driving home from my office in St. Louis MO, west on Interstate 44 with a 65 foot tractor trailer in my rear view mirror, I was not thinking---I hope that driver has been driving for eleven hours today so that he can maximize the profits for his company. That is the effect of the Bush administration's rejection of proposals to restrict the number of hours truckers could drive on the road. This loosening of regulations for truckers was preceded by guess what, lobbying efforts by the trucking industry.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration loosening standards has been done under the guise of fulfilling President Bush's pledge to free the trucking industry from "cumbersome rules. I guess that these rules on how long a truck driver can drive are not really promulgated for safety of the truck driver and the cars he or she meets on the road, but are restrictions on free enterprise, at least from the view point of the current administration.

This relaxing of regulations is in spite of the fact that a person dies in the United States every 15 minutes in a trucking related accident. Over the last 6 years, the Federal Motor Carrier safety administration has with the support of the White House rejected proposals reduce the number of hours a truck driver can drive, rejected proposals to impose electronic monitoring to prevent widespread cheating on drivers logs and rejected calls for for more rigorous truck driver training.

As long as the government and trucking companies have this attitude, there will be work for people like me, a trial lawyer. There is nothing that convinces a jury to award large damages then evidence that the defendant put profits over safety.

There are approximately 5,000 deaths annually in truck related accidents on the United States highways. In addition, there were approximately 114,000 injuries from truck accidents last year.

Despite these staggering numbers, The Bush administration has rejected tougher safety standards and has in fact reduced some safety standards such as how long truckers could be on the road before being required to rest. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration backed by the Bush administration has allowed truckers to be on the road longer, rejected proposals to electronically monitor drivers logs to prevent driver from falsifying their log books which is a widespread practice. This backing of big business over the safety of individuals is part of the reason the Bush administration and the Republican party lost control of Congress in November 2006.