Today a tractor trailer rear-ended a car near the campus of my undergraduate alma mater, Furman University in Greenville, SC. The lady in the car was airlifted by helicopter to Greenville Memorial Hospital. How many hundred times have I passed that spot? I’m scheduled to help judge the collegiate mock…
The National Transportation Safety Board has recommended that the DOT explore requiring fatigue monitoring systems. Those could include included lane departure warning systems, driver monitoring systems such as PERCLOS (which measures the rate of eyelid closure), and electronic onboard recorders. In addition, the NTSB spokesman said that “Both active braking…
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, at 49 CFR 391.11, requires that in order to get a Commercial Driver’s License, an applicant must be able to “read and speak the English language sufficiently to converse with the general public, to understand highway traffic signs and signals in the English language, to…
Ray LaHood, the new US Secretary of Transportation, is apparently focused on infrastructure and air traffic control, but not so much on trucking safety. According to an Associated Press article by Michael Tarm, LaHood is preparing to meet with the state DOT chiefs from all 50 states about plans for…
If you specialize in truck wreck litigation so you can do research at truck stops, you might be a redneck lawyer. On a long car trip a couple of days ago, I stopped for caffeine at a truck stop that is part of one of the big national truck stop…
On inauguration day, President Obama’s office issued a directive to agency heads directing a 60 day hold on newly issued regulations that had not yet become final. Regarding the trucking industry, three new regulations were published in the Federal Register during the last days of the Bush administration but had…
One of the first official acts of the new Obama administration was to put a hold on newly proposed or recently adopted federal regulations until the new team can review them. However, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s controversial hours of service regulations, which became final the day before the…
On Saturday, I became the sole nominee for election as Treasurer of the State Bar of Georgia for a one-year term beginning in June. Fortunately, the Bar is in good financial condition and has an excellent CFO on board. I expect to spend a lot of quality time with spreadsheets…
Today a tractor trailer accident on a frozen Michigan highway spilled a truckload of eggs when the driver fell asleep and crashed. The spilled eggs broke, scrambled and froze on the concrete. Fortunately, there were no injuries reported. This reminds me of a case we had on I-75 in south…
Two cement mixer trucks rolled over yesterday morning in Mississippi. This highlights something I have learned as a Georgia trucking accident attorney. In loaded cement mixer trucks the center of gravity is high and constantly shifting. Road tests described in standard truck driver training materials in the ready-mix concrete industry…