Georgia truck accidents

Published on: July 11, 2009

1 killed, 2 critically injured in Savannah collision with 18 wheeler

As a trucking trial attorney working statewide in Georgia, I often see how accident investigations go awry due to the trucking company’s rapid response to crashes, while the victims are unable to tell officers their side of the story and do not retain appropriate lawyers until months after important evidence has disappeared.

Late Thursday night, according to a report from WTOC TV, an 18 wheeler collided with a pickup truck at the intersection of Bay Street and West Lathrop Avenue in Savannah. All three men in the pickup were badly hurt. Joe Brown Jr. , 61, of Savannah died at the scene. Connally Brinson and Ricky Brown were reported in critical condition at Memorial University Medical Center.

This is at a broad intersection on a major thoroughfare about half a mile west of the historic downtown district of Savannah, approaching the docks. The news report contains little detail, but many of the 18 wheelers operating in that area are intermodal transport units, with road tractors pulling poorly maintained trailer chassis on which are mounted shipping containers. On the roads near the Port of Savannah, we often see intermodal tractor-trailers hauling freight containers to or from containers ships. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has issued new rules for safety of intermodal trailers, but the new rules have not yet been implemented.

Typically, after a catastrophic crash involving a big rig operated by a majlor trucking company, the pattern response is for the truck driver to immediately call the dispatcher, who calls the risk manager even at home in the middle of the night, who in turn calls a defense lawyer in the state where the crash occurred in order to claim work product privilege for anything that is done, and an investigator. The investigator, and sometimes the defense lawyer, may arrive at the accident scene before the debris is cleared. Evidence may be “lost” and the course of police investigation may be affected. They may then make sure that electronic evidence is deleted within a matter of days, and documents are not retained a moment longer than required by law, if that long. In addition, police reports are often prepared without the benefit of input from people in the smaller vehicles, who were killed or seriously injured, while the truck driver and the company’s investigator are able to tell their story to the investigating officer.

That is why it is important for family members of the victims to act quickly to contact a lawyer who knows how to mount a prompt response in order to secure the necessary evidence before it disappears.
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Published on: July 7, 2009

Wisconsin teen killed in Albany crash

By Ken Shigley

Disaster struck a Wisconsin family on Saturday while passing through Albany, GA, returning from vacation. A pickup truck that swerved from the oncoming lane on a four-lane state highway northeast of Albany.

According to a report in the Tomah Journal, Jesse Parker, 17, of Tomah, Wisconsin, was killed. HIs sister, Gabrielle, 16, was in critical condition. Their parents, Bradley and Jennifer Parker, were reported in good physical condition, though their grief must be unbearable.

The driver of the pickup, Janette Norem, 45, of Cordele, Ga., also died in the crash. A tractor trailer was also involved in the incident.
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Published on: July 2, 2009

Ice cream truck driver injured in collision with 18 wheeler

By Ken Shigley

The driver of an Atlanta ice cream truck was seriously injured this morning when a tractor trailer pulled out in front of him.

According to a report by Chip Towers in the AJC, a tractor trailer on Camp Creek Parkway turned left on a green light, but without a green turn arrow. An ice cream truck traveling in the opposite direction had the right of way and was unable to avoid collision. The tractor trailer also collided with a county public works vehicle.

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations require compliance with local traffic laws, including Rules of the Road regarding proper turning.

We often see truck-car collisions in metro Atlanta in the morning hours that involve truckers who have driven all night and make misjudgments due to fatigue when they get into Atlanta traffic. Of course, it is pure speculation to guess that could be a factor.

However, in such a case it is always important to promptly request preservation of driver logs, trip documents, and an array of other records all interstate trucking companies are required to maintain. Some records, especially satellite communications GPS data, may disabppear within a few days. Drivers logs are only required to be kept six months.
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Published on: April 22, 2009

Ambulance on wrong side of road in head on collision in Carroll County

By Ken Shigley

A West Georgia Ambulance driver crossed the center line and crashed head on into a truck in Carrollton on Monday. Reportedly the ambulance was not on an emergency call. Both drivers were injured. The ambulance driver was transported by helicopter to Atlanta Medical Center.

Here’s the most pertinent portion of Georgia law on operation of emergency vehicles, including ambulances:

OCGA 40-6-6. Authorized emergency vehicles

(a) The driver of an authorized emergency vehicle or law enforcement vehicle, when responding to an emergency call, when in the pursuit of an actual or suspected violator of the law, or when responding to but not upon returning from a fire alarm, may exercise the privileges set forth in this Code section.

(b) The driver of an authorized emergency vehicle or law enforcement vehicle may:
(1) Park or stand, irrespective of the provisions of this chapter;

(2) Proceed past a red or stop signal or stop sign, but only after slowing down as may be necessary for safe operation;

(3) Exceed the maximum speed limits so long as he or she does not endanger life or property; and
(4) Disregard regulations governing direction of movement or turning in specified directions.

(c) The exceptions granted by this Code section to an authorized emergency vehicle shall apply only when such vehicle is making use of an audible signal and use of a flashing or revolving red light visible under normal atmospheric conditions from a distance of 500 feet to the front of such vehicle, except that a vehicle belonging to a federal, state, or local law enforcement agency and operated as such shall be making use of an audible signal and a flashing or revolving blue light with the same visibility to the front of the vehicle.

(d)(1) The foregoing provisions shall not relieve the driver of an authorized emergency vehicle from the duty to drive with due regard for the safety of all persons. . . .

(3) The provisions of this subsection shall apply only to issues of causation and duty and shall not affect the existence or absence of immunity which shall be determined as otherwise provided by law.

There’s nothing in that statute to authorize an ambulance to be operated on the wrong side of the road. Nothing to confer special status on an ambulance when it’s not responding to an emergency. You get the drift.
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Published on: March 18, 2009

How insurance adjusters lull you into complacency in order to take advantage of you

By Ken Shigley

When you or a loved one have been badly hurt in a catastrophic trucking accident, you may expect someone from the trucking company or its insurer to try to lull you into complacency. The objective is to avoid paying the value of the case, which they recognize is substantial. The tactics may remind you of the old joke, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.” They are from the insurance company and are “here to help you.”

The standard tactics, which my friend Morgan Adams in Chattanooga discussed in a recent blog post, include some variation of the following:

1. Pretending to be your friend. At trucking defense seminars, claims adjusters talk about how they try to become friends with a family by apologizing and offering to buy them a car and a house in exchange for giving up their claims. The adjusters take every opportunity to demonize any lawyers that the family might hire to represent them. At all costs they want to prevent the family from talking to an experienced trucking lawyer who would know how to investigate the case, demand that the company preserve paper and electronic records, and discovery trucking company’s violations of laws that contributed to causing the crash. In one recent case we handled, the adjuster started out talking to the family about paying their deductibles and copays on medical expense, and replacing their car, while at the same time trying to dispose of the physical evidence. But when the family hired me, and I deployed a rapid response to preserve evidence and make appropriate demands, the company soon paid its million dollar policy limit. Insurance adjusters know that revealing the truth could increase the value of the case significantly, and will do whatever they can to prevent that.

2. The misuse of annuities. Structured settlement annuities are a useful tool in settling cases because all the lifetime payments are tax-free and the burden of managing investments is lifted. However, in considering structured settlements, it is essential to focus first on what the defendant or its insurer is paying. Insurance companies will often show an unrepresented plaintiff that they will pay your family a million dollars over the next thirty years, while failing to mention that the annuity only costs $100,000 (or whatever) while the case has a present fair value in excess of a million dollars. In addition, they will use one of their own affiliated companies and brokers to issue the annuity, just switching the money from one hand to another. Thus, they play a shell game and get by with paying only a fraction of what the case is worth.

3. Inflation. No one knows exactly what future inflation will be, but we know that historically there is likely to be inflation. The adjusters will not seriously discuss with you how inflation will affect the value of funds paid.

4. Future medical expense. They exclude consideration of future medical expenses that eat into money paid to the family.They often fail to inform you of the impact of reimbursement claims by your health insurer, and do not protect your interests against such claims.

5. Future income loss. They exclude consideration of the full loss of income of the victim. People who have had major injuries often can’t work as much or as long as they would have, even if they initially return to work at the same job and at the same rate of pay.

6. Non-economic loss. They treat the non-economic losses of the family as having little or no value. The loss of quality of life, or the loss of a parent, is a matter of immense value which must be accounted for in a fair settlement of a case.

Remember the insurance adjuster’s job is to try to minimize payments on claims. No matter how friendly they may act, they are not there to help you.
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Published on: January 1, 2009

Two cement mixer truck rollovers highlight special handling characteristics

By Ken Shigley

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 graphically describe the handling characteristics. It is well known in the industry, and covered in training videos and Power Point presentations, that a loaded cement mixer truck will tip up on two wheels when making a ninety degree turn on level pavement at 12 miles per hour, and will roll over at 16 miles per hour.

Recently I handled a case in which cement mixer truck in Georgia rolled over when making a turn in a level intersection, landing on a family vehicle. The cement truck driver had just obtained his CDL a couple of month earlier, and his training on cement mixer truck driving consisted of showing him how to work the mixer controls. At his deposition, I showed the driver the standard industry training video. He swore that he had never been trained on any of that, and if he had been trained the accident and injury would not have occurred.

The cement company admitted responsibility for its driver and filed a motion to exclude to independent negligence claims against the corporation for its negligent hiring, training, entrustment and supervision. However, when we responded to their motion with a brief showing that under the Georgia tort reform legislation that requires apportionment of damages between the employer and driver, they soon agreed to a fair settlement in mediation.
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Published on: December 31, 2008

Tractor trailer wreck on I-85 Georgia due to bad tire

By Ken Shigley

This morning on I-85 near Newnan, Georgia, a tractor trailer wrecked due to a blown tire. A 72-year-old trucker driving a 1996 International 4000 tractor-trailer crashed when a right tire reportedly blew on the vehicle, causing him to lose control and strike a guardrail. Fortunately, no injuries were reported. It was a local truck delivering concrete forms.

Most of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations have been adopted for intrastate trucking within Georgia. The FMCSR, at 49 CFR 396.13, requires the driver to make a pre-trip inspection and sign a report noting any defect in equipment. The FMCSR at 49 CFR 392.7, specifies that the pre-trip inspection driver must confirm that the following are in good working order: service brakes, including trailer brake connections; parking (hand) brake; steering mechanism; lighting devices and reflectors; tires; horn; windshield wiper or wipers; rear-vision mirror or mirrors; coupling devices.
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Published on: December 27, 2008

Big rig and snow removal truck crash in NH reminds me of my first trucking case in GA

By Ken Shigley

A truck wreck in New Hampshire sounds similar to the the first interstate trucking personal injury case I handled as a “puppy lawyer” about 25 years ago, before I learned the basics of anything as fundamental as the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations.

In the New Hampshire accident this morning, a state snow plow truck on I-89 was struck in the rear by a tractor trailer. The tractor trailer driver was hospitalized for a head injury.

My case a quarter century ago arose out of a rare Georgia snow storm after Christmas. A Georgia DOT snow removal truck was outfitted with a blade in the front and salt spreader in back. With two workers in the cab, it was moving slowly clearing snow next to the median barrier. A flatbed tractor trailer running empty on the way home Texas was traveling way too fast, skidded on an icy spot, and skidded into the DOT truck. The Texas trucker clearly was not exercising the “extreme caution” required of commercial trucks in hazardous weather conditions.

The fellow “riding shotgun” in the DOT vehicle wasn’t hurt significantly in the initial impact, but was trapped, wedged between the median barrier and the 18 wheeler, when the snow removal truck caught fire. By the time someone broke out the windshield and pulled him to safety, he had second and third degree burns over much of his body. The case was a learning experience for me in that it was my first case involving a serious burn injury.
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Published on: December 26, 2008

Gasoline tanker crashes and explodes on Lookout Mountain

By Ken Shigley

Driving a gasoline tanker truck is one of the most dangerous and nerve-racking of occupations. I have heard from tanker truck drivers that they live in constant amprehension of disaster. After a relatively minor collision, their stress may suffer a form of post-traumatic stress disorder from contemplation of the close call.

This week a gasoline tanker truck operated by Florida Rock and Tanklines crashed and burned on Georgia Highway 157 on Lookout Mountain, as reported by WTVC television in Chattanooga. The driver was killed in the resulting explosion and fire.

Highway 157 is a beautiful route through a bucolic mountaintop landscape. Until I was 12 I lived at Mentone, Alabama, on top of Lookout Mountain, and went to school at Menlo, Georgia, in Shinbone Valley, so the site of this fiery crash is just a few miles north of the route I rode to school every day.

Published on: December 9, 2008

Atlanta motorist killed in collision with tractor trailer on Campbellton Road

By Ken Shigley

As an Atlanta trucking accident lawyer, I am always saddened to hear of yet another needless fatality on our metro roads and highways. This morning there was yet another report of the driver of a passenger vehicle being killed in an encounter with a tractor trailer, this time on Campbellton Road between Fulton Industrial Boulevard and the Chattahoochee River. The AJC report by Mike Morris said nothing about the cause of the crash.

I can’t really speculate about the cause of the fatal crash. However, we can be sure that the trucking company and its insurance company had a rapid response team on the scene before the debris was cleared to preserve (or not) the evidence and if possible influence the course of the investigation. That is standard operating procedure in the trucking industry, so it is essential for anyone who has been in a catastrophic truck collision, or lost a family member in one, to promptly contact a lawyer who knows the ropes in trucking cases in order to preserve evidence before it gets away.
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