Georgia Truck Accident Attorney Blog

Truck driver fatigue is a prime cause of catastrophic commercial trucking crashes that cause serious injuries and deaths. Over recent years in my Atlanta-based law practice, I have seen recurring controversy about the rules designed to combat driver fatigue. Well, here we go again.

This week the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration released for comment proposed changes in the Hours of Service rules. FMCSA must publish a final rule by July 26.

“A fatigued driver has no place behind the wheel of a large commercial truck,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said. “We are committed to an hours-of-service rule that will help create an environment where commercial truck drivers are rested, alert and focused on safety while on the job.”

Some of the highlights are:

– Current maximum driving time per day is 11 hours. FMCSA is considering both 10 and 11 hour limits.

– Current maximum on-duty time per day is 14 hours. FMCSA proposes 13 hours.

– On duty time would exclude any time resting in a parked commercial motor vehicle. Ideally, this would be utilized for “power naps” within the driving time window.

For more detail see the FMCSA summary and Notice of Rulemaking.
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Interstate trucking accidents keep happening, and as a trucking accident trial attorney in Atlanta, I keep seeing the tragic results. Many of those crashes are due at least in part to driver fatigue.

But in Washington the government is behind schedule for approval of revisions to truck drivers’ hours of service rules, according to a report from Heavy Duty Trucking magazine’s website.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration originally thought that the White House Office of Management and Budget would clear the proposal by the end of October. Now the FMCSA hopes that OMB and the White House will complete work on the proposal by the end of the year.

Trucking companies are anxious about the possibility that a rule change might significantly change drivers’ work schedules. As readers of this blog know, I think some change of schedules might be a good thing for safety.

There is also concern about FMCSA’s ability to process the voluminous comments it will no doubt receive and come up with a final rule by the court-ordered deadline of July 26, 2011.
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In our trucking accident litigation practice in Georgia, I sometimes run across fly-by-night trucking companies with terrible safety ratings that go out of business but then reopen under another name and DOT number but with the same people and equipment. Sometimes I have a case against the old company with a terrible record. Other times I get the new company with a safety rating wiped clean.

Almost two years ago, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration announced a new rule to stop this “chameleon carrier” shell game. 49 CFR 385.306 provides that if a company provides false or misleading information in the application process, the new applicant registration is subject to revocation. The application requires disclosure of related companies and individuals, and these are supposed to be scrutinized for outstanding orders to cease operations. Any new entrant registration is supposed to be linked to the history of any related old motor carrier in the FMCSA database.

That’s great if it works. However, an article on The Trucker reveals how the FMCSA is so swamped with applications that companies that should have such safety scrutiny can easily slip through the cracks, sometimes with tragic consequences.

Days before Hester Inc. – the motor carrier involved in an 11-fatality, much publicized accident in Kentucky March 26 – was scheduled to be shut down by FMCSA due to an unsatisfactory saffety rating, an existing carrier with brokerage authority, FTS Fleet Services, was granted operating authority to do business from Hester’s Fayette, Ala., facilities using much of the same equipment, the same drivers and some of the same operations personnel.

Scott Hester, president of Hester Inc., listed himself as president of FTS Fleet Services. However, despite the requirements of 49 CFR 385.306, the FMCSA never made the connection between Hester Inc. and FTS Fleet Services until questioned by a reporter. By June 10, five days after Hester Inc. had been ordered closed due to its unsatisfactory safety record, former Hester trucks and drivers were on the road as FTS Fleet Services.

The Trucker reports that where companies about to be shut down file for a new DOT number under a new name, they still can easily go undetected because of the heavy load of applications and because of a lack of information sharing between divisions at the agency.

The last time in our trucking accident practice we had a case against a “chameleon carrier,” as soon as we asked for the background records and made a demand, the insurer tendered its million dollar policy limit. The Hester / FTS example is a reminder that whenever one has a case against a newly authorized trucking company, it is prudent to do discovery about the company owners and officers, and the safety ratings of any prior companies with which they were associated. If the defendant is a chameleon carrier, the unsatisfactory safety rating of the old company should be admissible in evidence in support of a claim for punitive damages or for attorney fees due to bad faith in the transaction.
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As a trucking accident injury trial attorney in Atlanta, Georgia, I sometimes run across truck drivers about whom I wonder how they ever passed a medical exam. In a case last year, when I dug into records and took depositions, I found that a truck driver with extensive heart disease had open heart surgery. Soon thereafter he returned to work driving an 18 wheeler over the road.

How did he pass his Commercial Drivers License (CDL) medical exam to return to work so soon after open heart surgery? He went to a chiropractor for a CDL medical certificate at 8 AM before reporting for work at 8:30 AM.

In another case, I found that a truck driver’s own physician said he should not have left home without an oxygen tank due to COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disesase), and lack of oxygen to the brain made him unfit to drive.

In both cases, the truck drivers’ medical conditions were contributing factors in their poor judgments in operating 80,000 pound big rig vehicles.

Now, a news story on MS-NBC has revealed just how easy it is for a long-haul trucker to renew medical certification. A chiropractor or advance practice nurse at a truck stop medical clinic can renew a trucker’s medical certificate in 20 minutes — even after open heart surgery.

And truck drivers who are denied certification for any reason can simply head down the road and try another “med stop” because data tracking of this issue is nonexistent. Moreover, even when a trucker is caught without proper medical certification, immediate license revocation may not result
While the National Transportation Safety Board in 2002 proposed enhanced medical standards for truckers, the response has been minimal. Over the ensuing six years, over 800 fatal crashes were blamed, at least in part, on medically unqualified drivers.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has begun tightening supervision of medical certification, but for those killed or maimed by unfit truck drivers in the meantime, it’s too little and too late.
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