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As a trucking accident attorney in Atlanta, Georgia, I try to keep up with what ‘s going on in neighboring states. Yesterday morning in Charlotte, NC, a motorist was killed when he hit the rear of a parked tractor trailer in an emergency lane.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, at 49 C.F.R. § 392.22, requires that when a tractor trailer stops on a highway or shoulder, the driver must activate hazard warning signal flashers, and within ten minutes must place either bidirectional reflective triangles or flares.

I don’t know the details of this tragedy in Charlotte, but I do know some of the questions that should be asked.
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Recently a Texas law firm has begun aggressively advertising for Georgia trucking accident cases through Google and Youtube, directly soliciting for Georgia cases even though that firm has no Georgia attorney and no Georgia office.

To a consumer looking at the Texas firm’s web content, without reading the fine print, it looks like the firm is in Atlanta or Savannah. However, the Texas firm has no “boots on the ground” in Georgia. This presents a substantial danger for consumers responding to that firm’s advertising.

While Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations are the same throughout the nation, the laws of torts, civil procedure and evidence vary from state to state. We don’t market to target cases in other states. When we get cases in neighboring states, the first thing we do is associate local counsel with intimate familiarity with the specific court where the case would be tried.

Although an out of state firm has some latitude in handling matters up to the point of filing suit, ignorance of local rules and practice creates great danger for anyone hiring a Texas law firm for a Georgia case. Lack of familiarity with Georgia laws, court rules, legal culture and practices can be deadly.

If you have a serious case in Georgia, you need a seasoned Georgia trial attorney who knows the lay of the land in Georgia, and who is known in Georgia.
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A speeding tractor trailer crash on I-95 in Georgia rammed the rear of a Ross Township, Pennsylvania family’s van Sunday afternoon, killing a 3-year-old child.

Sean Thornton, the youngest of three children of Daniel and Susan Thornton, was killed in his child car seat when a big rig slammed into the rear of the family minivan and pushed it off the road into the woods. It came to rest in cold marsh water. The family was en route to a post-Christmas Florida vacation.

The child’s mother, Susan Thornton, 38, was driving. According to KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh, the impact badly mangled her foot and it may have to be amputated. The father, Daniel Thornton, 47, has a broken jaw. The five-year-old sister has a broken foot, leg and arm. An eight-year-old brother has a cracked skull.

According to Georgia State Patrol spokesman Thornell King, the Thornton family’s 2007 Toyota Sienna van had slowed due to traffic congestion when it was struck in the rear at a high rate of speed by the 1999 Freightliner tractor-trailer truck hauling a load of paper products, driven by Willie Hill, 50, of Jacksonville.

Hill reportedly had picked up a load at Riceboro, en route to Gulfport, Mississippi. Riceboro is the site of a large Interstate Paper plant producing linerboard.

Media reports show a double trailer in the woods. News reports do not identify the trucking company involved.

I bet the family has been directly solicited by lawyers trolling the hospital or sending them promotional packages, in direct violation of bar rules that would subject them to disbarment if reported.
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On Georgia highways you often see trucks carrying intermodal freight containers that were delivered to southeastern ports from places around the world. Attorneys preparing to take to trial cases of catastrophic trucking accidents involving intermodal freight need to understand issues that differ not only from regular highway accidents but also that from other trucking accidents.

When freight containers are shipped by sea, rail and truck, that is called intermodal shipping. Throughout the country you see large intermodal freight facilities that transfer freight containers between ships, trains and trucks. In Georgia, vast amounts of container freight are handled through the port of Savannah.

This week the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Adminstration began enforcing its Intermodal Chassis rule that requires intermodal equipment providers (IEPs), motor carriers and drivers to share responsibility for the safety of intermodal equipment used on U.S. highways.

Intermodal equipment or chassis are the trailers used in the transfer of goods from a ship or rail car to trucks for final delivery. There has been a problem with old, poorly maintained trailer chassis being spray painted and put back into service hauling freight containers, with inadequate regard for safety. Now there are new rules requiring providers of intermodal chassis to implement systematic inspection, repair and maintenance programs, and repair or replace defective equipment. The chassis must now display uniform identifying numbers.

For cases where the insurance coverage of a small motor carrier is inadequate to compensate a catastrophic injury, we also consider the potential to access the insurance coverage of the ocean carrier that is responsible to the shipper for delivery of freight all the way to the inland destination.
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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 to a ban on text messaging by truck drivers while in motion, FMCSA (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration) will require an interlock between truck cab communication systems and truck transmission, so that drivers must stop the truck before typing a response.

3. FMCSA will require Electronic On Board Recorders (EOBR) for all new commercial road tractors, and retrofitting of existing units within 3 to 5 years.

4. The FMCSA will require seat belts and safety glass in new motor coaches, and may require retrofitting of existing motor coaches with seat belts within 3 to 5 years.

5. FMCSA’s new Comprehensive Safety Analysis (CSA 2010) program will make truck drivers more conscious of the need to maintain their own health in order to maintain a Commercial Driver’s License, thereby gradually increasing demand for truck stop chains to begin offering healthy food and exercise facilities.
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As a commercial trucking trial attorney in Atlanta, Georgia, I am often called after another lawyer has messed around with a tractor trailer or big rig crash case, not knowing what he is doing, for about eighteen months. By then, much of the evidence that would have been invaluable in preparation of the case has been discarded, shredded, or otherwise lost or destroyed.

Therefore, I am providing (below the break) a “spoliation letter” suitable for adaptation to the specific circumstances of a commercial trucking case. I would prefer that clients or attorneys who do not ordinarily handle large trucking cases contact me soon after the incident occurs, But if I am contacted later, it would be much better if the first attorney had used some variation on this letter soon after the event, and in any event within six months.
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When a container of freight is shipped from Shanghai or Rotterdam, the bill of lading is for shipment to the ultimate destination, not just to the port of Savannah or Charleston or Jacksonville. The ocean carrier than contracts the transportation of the freight container is responsible for the movement of the freight all the way to the inland destination, even though it contracts with another company to haul it by truck on the last leg of the trip.

Under the definitions in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, the ocean freight carrier qualifies as a motor carrier, and is subject to liability when the container shipment operations injures an innocent motorist on the highways of Georgia.

It’s considerably more complicated than a regular road wreck, but the distinction can make a huge difference in the availability of adequate insurance coverage in a catastrophic case.
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The owner of a trucking firm has pleaded guilty to criminal charges arising from the maintenance of a defective and almost brakeless tractor-trailer rig that caused a fatal six car crash in Pennsylvania last January. He is the third man to face criminal sentences due to that wreck. They are:

* Owner of tractor portion of rig – Victor M. Kalinitchii, 41, Philadelphia, homicide by motor vehicle, faces 3 1/2 to 7 years in prison.

* Driver – Valerijs N. Belovs, 56, from Northeast Philadelphia, homicide by vehicle, faces 8 1/2 to 17 years in prison.

* Maintenance – Joseph W. Jadczak Jr., 61, owner of Pratts Auto Service in Philadelphia, homicide by motor vehicle, faces 3 1/2 to seven years in prison.

If civil remedies aren’t enough to get the attention of trucking company owners who put drivers on the road in unsafe vehicles, or require drivers to work when too fatigued to be safe, then perhaps criminal prosecutions can get their attention.

However, Georgia law on homicide by vehicle is written in terms that would be unlikely to reach beyond the driver of the vehicle. See OCGA § 40-6-393 and cross references. Do any of my fellow lawyers out there see an interpretation of those code section that would support criminal prosecution in Georgia of a truck owner or repair facility that put a defective truck on the road?
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While my law practice in Atlanta is focused on representing people who are seriously injured when they are hit by commercial trucks and buses, I get a lot of calls from truck drivers all over the country who are concerned about employers requiring them to drive unsafe equipment or to drive beyond their legal hours of service.

Partly to save myself some time on the phone, below the break is a copy of 49 US Code, Section 1536.

I don’t personally handle these matters. If you are a truck driver concerned about such issues, I suggest that you read this post, then contact Truckers Justice Center , 900 West 128th Street, Suite 104, Burnsville, MN 55337, Telephone 952.224.9166, Fax 678.791.1728.
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A mom and her three preschool children were injured on December 4th in Spalding County, Georgia, when a J. B. Hunt tractor trailer ran a stop sign and hit the passenger side of the family van.

According to the Georgia State Patrol spokesman, Cindy Lynn Fain, 38, of Hampton, was driving her Dodge minivan when the tractor trailer ran a stop sign and hit her vehicle. Her three seriously injured children were airlifted to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston, while the mom was taken to Spalding Regional Medical Center.

The Griffin Daily News reported that a 5-year-old girl in the van was in critical condition in ICU with a serious head injury and complex fractures of her left lower leg and foot. The 4-year-old child had a broken hip, and the 2-year-old had a less serious head injury.

According to a report by Mashaun Simon in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the tractor trailer was driven by Solomon Debela, 37, of Tucker, Georgia. Debela was charged with failure to stop at a stop sign, failure to obey a traffic control device and charged for driving a truck on a no-thru truck road.

A report by Sheila Marshall in the Griffin Daily News states that Debela was a driver for J. B. Hunt, one of the largest trucking companies in America, and that he did not even try to stop at the stop sign.

Commercial trucking accidents are seldom as simple as one guy disregarding a traffic signal. When we dig in, we usually find that the corporate safety management policies and practices, and a tendency to turn a blind eye to unsafe practices, lie behind nearly every trucking tragedy. Lawyers who think these are just bigger car wrecks are dangerously naive and do a disservice to their clients.
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Email: ken.shigley@johnsonward.com
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