The Obama administration has announced that Anne Ferro will be nominated to head the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. She is currently president of the Maryland Motor Truck Association, a trucking industry organization. Previously she ran the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration, administering drivers licenses. Her nomination drew immediate praise from…
The hard questions are not between good and bad, but between good and good, and between bad and bad. That maxim is illustrated in a New York Times article by Josh Voorhees about Charles Hurley, the nominee to become administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The conflict is…
A a trucking safety attorney in Atlanta, two of the federal agencies I watch most closely are the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The President’s nominee to head the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is Charles A. Hurley, CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving…
Corporate shell games to avoid accountability for injuring or killing people are all too common. We see it an a variety of contexts. Today I got an email outlining how attorneys for nursing homes are directing their clients to lower their insurance coverage to $100,000 and set up an intricate…
President Obama has signed legislation killing the Transportation Department’s controversial test of longhaul cross-border trucking with Mexico. As a trucking safety trial attorney in Atlanta, Georgia, I haven’t yet seen problems with Mexican truckers but I do see truckers who don’t speak English although adequate English proficiency is required under…
Truck driver fatigue is one of the most obvious causes of truck crashes. Obstructive sleep apnea is among the most common contributing factors. Obesity is a big risk factor for obstructive sleep apnea. Now there is another study reconfirming the obvious: that obesity-driven testing strategies identify commercial truck drivers with…
Handling truck accident injury and death cases in Georgia, I have often seen how inadequate the levels of insurance coverage can be for the havoc created by large truck crashes. Now there are efforts to catch up the levels of coverage for 29 years of inflation. The current levels of…
As a trucking safety trial attorney in Atlanta, I often see cases involving medically unfit drivers. I’ve seen cases where truckers were blind in one eye, were supposed to carry an oxygen tank 24/7 for COPD, or had untreated obstructive sleep apnea, all medically disqualifying conditions. Fortunately, the Federal Motor…
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration determined that a 99% pass rate in safety audits of new motor carrier entrants might be missing something, since new entrants were still involved in a higher percentage of trucking accidents. The initial grant of authority to operate as an interstate motor carrier is…
It is not uncommon for a carrier with a bad safety record to shut down one corporate entity and open a new company involving the same individuals. By changing corporate entities and getting a new DOT number the company could effectively hide the bad safety record. When an existing motor…