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 trial competition at Furman in late March.
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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 and ESC technologies represent opportunities for significant enhancement of CWSs’ capabilities to prevent (or mitigate) commercial vehicle accidents.”
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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 respond to official inquiries, and to make entries on reports and records.”
A news story from West Virginia tells about a Russian truck driver who wrecked and spilled a truckload of cocoa. He could not speak English, but somehow had obtained a Maryland CDL.
There have been occasional stories about people essentially buying CDL licenses in various states although they did not qualify. I won’t guess what may have happened with this guy.
However, we have seen cases in which immigrant truck drivers who did not speak or read English obtained CDL licenses contrary to the federal rule. In one case a year or so ago, I took the deposition in Kansas City — through an interpreter — of a Croatian truck driver who was taught to drive a tractor trailer by “some Russian guy in North Carolina. He said his study of the CDL manual and rules was accomplished by having his 10-year-old daughter translate it for him.
By the time I took his deposition he had learned enough English to have a little conversation, though we had to work through an interpreter. Can you imagine how hard it is to get a Croatian interpreter at all. Forget about getting one who knows the nuances of court interpreting.
You just can’t make this stuff up.
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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 road and mass transit projects with funds from the economic stimulus legislation. That seems certain to consume most of his energy and attention.
A strong second priority is replacement of the radar-based national air traffic control system with a satellite-based system called NextGen.
I have not yet seen any announcement of who may be the new head of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Stay tuned.
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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 chains. Walking around the store area, I reconfirmed something I wrote recently about how hard it is for long-haul truck drivers to follow a healthy diet and exercise routine.
About 98% of the food and beverage items in that truck stop were high in fat, salt and calories. Adjoining the truck stop was a fast food outlet with virtually no items that you would eat if you were trying to maintain healthy weight. There were some in-cab cooking appliances that a driver could use to prepare food he brought from home, but nothing that would constitute a healthy meal. However, it is unusual to find a supermarket where fresh produce could be purchased with parking spaces for big rigs.
While truck stops often have showers and video games, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one with any exercise facilities. If a trucker wants to run on his off duty hours, consider that most truck stops are located on busy highways by freeway exits, hardly conducive environments for safe running.
A trucker who was a former professional hockey player once told me what an ordeal it is for him to find decent food and a place to exercise. For anyone less motivated than a former pro athlete, the strong tendency is to become increasingly obese and unhealthy while driving over the road. At the truck stop I visited this week, that was grossly obvious as about 90% of the truck drivers I saw were very significantly overweight. They looked like prime candidates for obstructive sleep apnea.
It would be refreshing to see one of the truck stop chains start marketing to truckers on the basis of healthy food options and availability of gym facilities along with showers.
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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 not yet become final. Those include final rules on responsibility for intermodal chassis, driver medical certification verification and the new entrant safety assurance process.
The new hours of service regulation became final on the day before the inauguration, and was not included in the list of regulations put on hold. It is anyone’s guess what decision might be made on that.
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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 inauguration, was not on the list.
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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 over the next 17 months.
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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 Georgia a couple of years ago. A truck driver trying to make it from Milwaukee to Tampa with a load of frozen hamburger meat without any rest recorded on a log fell asleep at the wheel, striking our client’s vehicle. The state trooper told me his biggest challenge was crowd control, stopping local deputies from making off with all the spilled hamburger patties.
There are at least a couple of possible violations of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations evident in the news report.
* 49 CFR 392.3 prohibits operation of a commercial motor vehicle when driver’s ability or alertness is so impaired, or so likely to become impaired, through fatigue, etc., so as to make it unsafe to drive. When truck drivers fall asleep at the wheel due to excessive fatigue, we often uncover violations of the hours of service regulation at 49 CFR 395.3.
* 49 CFR 392.14 requires “extreme caution” in the operation of a commercial motor vehicle when hazardous conditions, such as those caused by snow, ice, sleet, etc., adversely affect visibility or traction. The news report does not specify whether there was ice on the road, only that the eggs froze after the crash.
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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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Georgia Truck Accident Attorney Blog