Georgia Truck Accident Attorney Blog

Published on: April 24, 2009

Video of tractor trailer tipping over looks like load shift

Here is a remarkable video of a tractor trailer tipping over on a straight, level road. My hunch is that it was caused by a load shift due to improper loading. It is usually the truck driver who is most likely to be injured in such incidents.

Since truck drivers are required the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, 49 CFR 392.9, to check the load unless it is sealed, however, recovery from the shipper on behalf of the driver normally requires proof that the freight was improperly loaded by the shipper and that the trailer was sealed when it was picked up by the driver.
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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: April 21, 2009

Bus safety deficits are target of NTSB report

By Ken Shigley

It was in March 2007 that a tour bus carrying the Bluffton University baseball team crashed in Atlanta. Without seatbelts required in Europe and Austrailia, but not in the US, there were unnecessary deaths. Working on that case was an education.

Now the National Transportation Safety Board has issued a report hammering the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for failure to implement recommendations to require seatbelts and stronger roofs and windows on buses. The NTSB has been prodding NHTSA to enact those suggestions for a decade.

According to an article by Sholln Freeman in the Washington Post, the NTSB was also critical of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for lax driver medical certification procedures. Fortunately, however, the FMCSA has issued a new rule to tighten medical certification rules going forward. It’s a step in the right direction.

However, no apparent progress has been made on bringing bus safety standards up to world standards. Buses manufactured in Europe and sold in the US come without seatbelts as standard equipment. The same bus sold in Turkey, for example, has seatbelts.
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Published on: April 14, 2009

MARTA bus rollover on ramp hints poor hiring and training practices

By Ken Shigley

This morning a MARTA bus rolled over on the ramp from I-285 to I-20 eastbound. It is a tight curving ramp with signs warning everyone to slow down and pictogram signs warning large vehicles the risk of rollover. Frankly, a truck or bus simply won’t roll over if the driver is adequately screened and trained.

Recently we handled a case in which a cement mixer truck rolled over in an intersection. The driver said he was going 25 MPH when he made the turn. Then I showed him an industry standard training video that instructs drivers that a cement mixer truck will roll over at 16 MPH in a level 90 degree turn. He then said that if he had been trained on that, the accident would not have happened.

Right now I’m handling a case in which a MARTA “short bus” for the handicapped slammed into the rear of a car stopped at a red light. A Ph.D. psychologist who was an eyewitness immediately called MARTA with an account of the MARTA driver acting like she was drunk. It turns out that the MARTA driver had a long criminal history including felony drug offenses, had not long before applying to MARTA completed a lengthy residential drug rehab program as a condition of criminal sentencing, was off her long-term psychiatric medications, and had an open bench warrant in Michigan for probation violation. MARTA did not both to check with any prior employers, did not follow its own rules to get a 7-year driving history, and did not check criminal history in the state from which she had just moved. The MARTA trainer noted, just about a month before this crash, that she was not ready and needed retraining.

After the psychologist eyewitness described her impaired manner, MARTA chose not to have a post-accident drug test.

So when I saw the story this morning about a MARTA bus rolling over on a freeway ramp, it all fit in context.
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Published on: April 10, 2009

NHTSA nominee faces hard choices between fuel economy and vehicle safety

By Ken Shigley

The hard questions are not between good and bad, but between good and good, and between bad and bad.

That maxim is illustrated in a New York Times article by Josh Voorhees about Charles Hurley, the nominee to become administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The conflict is between CAFE standards on fuel economy and improving safety standards. It’s a tough call between improving fuel economy with smaller cars and improving safety with tougher cars.
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Published on: April 8, 2009

MADD CEO picked to head National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

By Ken Shigley

A a trucking safety attorney in Atlanta, two of the federal agencies I watch most closely are the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The President’s nominee to head the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is Charles A. Hurley, CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD).

Mr. Hurley as previously a senior official of the National Safety Council and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The White House said Hurley had worked extensively with law enforcement on air bag and seat belt issues, teen driving and child passenger safety.

A former naval intelligence officers, he also worked in a variety of staff positions for elected officials.

President Obama has yet to name a new head of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
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Published on: April 7, 2009

With Atlanta expressway signage problems still not corrected, another bus narrowly avoids repeat of Bluffton bus crash two years ago

By Ken Shigley

In March 2007, a tour bus carrying the Bluffton University baseball team from Ohio to Florida mistakenly took the Northside Drive exit from the left HOV lane on I-75 in Atlanta and crashed off a bridge at the top of the ramp. The National Transportation Safety Board issued a report that blamed the tragedy on bad signs and driver error. I was in the team of lawyers representing the victims of that tragedy.

Problems with Georgia DOT’s signage at the Northside Drive exit included:

* The design of traffic signs for this exit was not prepared in substantial compliance with generally accepted engineering or design standards in effect at the time it was designed prior to the 1996 Olympics.

* An advanced guide sign placed on the Howell Mill Road overpass, which precedes the Left Exit at Northside Drive, graphically indicated the approach of the exit to I-85 northbound, which is after the Left Exit when heading southbound.

* Advanced guide signs are supposed to be used to describe the immediate next exit, not an exit that is located after the next exit.

* Because the advanced guide sign attached to the Howell Mill Road overpass did not describe the immediate next exit, which was the Left Exit, but rather described the exit after that, which was the I-85 northbound exit, that sign was not prepared in substantial compliance with generally accepted engineering or design standards.

Yesterday, Jeffrey Scott of the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that last week two other bus driver mistook the same HOV exit ramp for a through lane, and narrowly averted repeating the Bluffton bus tragedy on the same spot.

Some of the changes in signage recommended by the National Transportation Safety Board last summer are still not in place, over two years after the Bluffton crash. A DOT spokesman said the footings for new signs had just been placed.

I happened to drive by that location this morning before work. A strip of reflective material and a reflective sign with arrows pointing right and left have been added at the point where the Bluffton team bus crashed off the bridge to the expressway below.

Click here for a video of the approach to this location.
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Published on: April 7, 2009

Hazardous shipments data compiled in new Hazardous Intelligence Portal

By Ken Shigley

The US Department of Transportation has announced a new data warehouse and web portal that enables government agencies to share information about hazardous shipments throughout the country.

The new Hazardous Intelligence Portal will compile data from 26 different sources about hazardous materials shipments by truck, rail, air, pipeline, barge and ship.

Agencies such the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Federal Railroad Administration, Pipeline &Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, and Coast Guard all enter and retrieve information in the system. The program is negotiating agreements to include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Transportation Security Agency.

I anticipate the when HazMat incidents in trucking cause serious injuries, there will be Freedom of Information Act requests for relevant data stored in the Hazardous Intelligence Portal.
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Published on: April 6, 2009

FBI sets up database connecting trucker suspects and bodies dumped along highways

By Ken Shigley

Today’s Los Angeles Times carries an article by Scott Glover reporting that the FBI suspects that serial killers working as long-haul truck drivers may be responsible for murders of hundreds of prostitutes, hitchhikers and stranded motorists whose bodies have been dumped near interstate highways over the past 30 years.

The FBI has compiled a database correlating information on more than 500 female victims, most of whom were killed and their bodies discarded at truck stops, motels and other locations along heavily traveled trucking routes across the U.S., and information on scores of truckers who’ve been charged with killings or rapes committed near highways or who are suspects in such crimes.

Investigators have speculated that the mobility, lack of supervision and access to potential victims that come with the job make it a good cover for someone inclined to kill.

Of course, it is no more fair to hold that against the reasonably decent 99.999% of truckers who may fudge on their logs but don’t intentionally kill anyone than it is to stigmatize priests and teachers as pedophiles because of the bad acts of a perverted 0.001%.

People with evil intent may be attracted to an occupation that provides easy access to potential victims, but that should not be held against the vast majority who are reasonably decent folks. Some of the victims discussed in the article were truck stop prostitutes whose choices made them especially vulnerable to predators using a truck driving job as a cover to act as serial killers. Of course, it’s never open season on women, even if they are truck stop prostitutes, and the killers should be brought to justice.

I suppose the take-home points of the story are that law enforcement officers now have a useful new tool to help catch serial killers using trucking as a cover, women traveling alone should take all necessary precautions for their safety, and we should guard against unfairly stigmatizing truck drivers as a group.
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Published on: March 24, 2009

Health and wellness challenges for truck drivers affect safety

By Ken Shigley

While my law practice primarily involves representing individuals and families in injury and death claims caused by negligent trucking companies, I get a lot of calls from truck drivers. Some of them are bright, sophisticated people.

Last week I had a call from a truck driver who has a master’s degree from a nationally prominent university. Truck driving wasn’t the original career plan, but the market’s a little weak for liberal arts and social sciences degrees.

Our conversation wandered through several aspects of the trucking lifestyle. One thing we discussed was the difficulty of maintaining a sensible regimen of diet and exercise, a topic on which I recently wrote.

This trucker talked at length about the near impossibility of finding healthy food at truck stops, and the lack of safe places to get exercise at or near truck stops. The trucker commented on gaining 30 pounds in the first four months on the road.

In 2007, the Transportation Research Board published a lengthy report on Health and Wellness Programs for Commercial Drivers.

A common sense observation in the report is:

It is estimated that more than 50% of commercial drivers are regular smokers. Many are obese, lack proper physical exercise, tend to develop chronic diseases such as diabetes at relatively early ages, and may have slightly elevated suicide rates.

A few key points from the report are:

• What is needed is long-term is a cultural change, a paradigm shift in the transportation industry toward embracing integrated models of health, safety, and productivity management as being the joint and shared responsibility of individual drivers, their managers, and senior leadership of their organizations.

• Transportation companies interested in developing their own employee health and wellness programs are still very much in need of guidance and resources on “how to do it.” Better tools and off-the-shelf practices for translating knowledge into action are needed.

• Prominent in the practical experiences of carriers is the difficulty of making employee health and wellness program elements available to the drivers themselves-that is, how does one effectively reach and obtain driver involvement, especially when drivers are so mobile because of their day-to-day working environment and their quick turnover rates in employment?

• Commercial driver advocate groups (e.g., FMCSA, ATA, NPTC, ATRI, the ABA, UMA, and others) each have important roles to play in helping bring about the needed culture change toward employee (driver) health and wellness programs.

• Screening for deficits in specific visual, mental, and physical abilities that significantly predict at-fault crashes can be practically carried out in an office environment. With the aging of the work force, such practices will have increasing value for industry and highway safety.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is attempting to address this problem with reforms of regulations on medical certification of drivers. But truck drivers’ lifestyle, diet and exercise, remain huge challenges.

It’s a long report with a lot of detail. I commend it to professional truck drivers and safety managers.
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