Trucking safety practices over the past year and a half have been impacted by adoption of the Comprehensive Safety Analysis (CSA) program. The CSA has three components that measure safety performance, evaluating high-risk behaviors and crafting appropriate interventions. For commercial motor carriers, the standards significantly alter how truckers and companies…
For many years, interstate truck drivers have referred to the driver logs required by federal law as “comic books.” Falsification of logs has been so common that many drivers kept two sets of logs, one for their own use and another to show to inspectors. As a trucking accident trial…
Driver fatigue is one of the more common causes of large truck crashes. There is no test for fatigue, but when we dig back into the driver’s itinerary it can be deduced. Every few months we see another technological approach to dealing with driver fatigue. The latest is an app…
Because driver fatigue is one of the most pervasive safety issues in interstate trucking, trucking safety regulations for many years have included rules on how many hours a driver may drive and be on duty. In almost every serious trucking accident, the accuracy of paper driver logs becomes an issue.…
As a trucking accident trial attorney in Georgia, half of my work seems to be ferreting out the facts that the other side wants to conceal. For years much of the challenge has been in attempting to prove driver fatigue by piercing the fog of deception in paper driver logs…
As a trucking accident trial attorney based in Atlanta, Georgia, I try to keep up with trucking safety issues at the national level. The latest development was a statement last week by Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration director Ann Ferro at a U.S. Senate subcommittee. Some of the high points…
Truckers have a tough, dangerous job. While my trucking accident law practice in Atlanta, Georgia, is often focused on representing folks in smaller vehicles who are on the receiving end of highly unfavorable physics in collisions, I also represent some truckers. Two news stories this week highlight one of the…
I’m a trucking safety lawyer in Atlanta, not a futurist or a psychic. However, I’m going to go out on a limb and post my top five predictions for motor carrier safety in 2010. 1. Accident and fatality rates in interstate commercial trucking will continue to decline. 2. In addition…
A prominent highway safety organization, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, has petitioned the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to evaluate risks posed by drivers of commercial vehicles using electronic devices and to then issue regulations to limit such distractions. Electronic distractions that cause concern include cell phones, text messaging,…
Safety advocates, led by Stephen Owings, an Atlanta financial planner, are joined by the American Trucking Association in seeking rules requiring speed governors on interstate commercial trucks. They say the devices will save both lives and money. Owings started Road Safe America after his son, Cullum, was killed on a…