Georgia Truck Accident Attorney Blog

Published on: May 28, 2012

Tractor trailer crashes & overturns on freeway ramp in Alabama

This weekend an 18-wheeler that crashed and overturned at the Interstate 65/85 interchange in Montgomery, Alabama. Fortunately, no injuries were reported in this incident, unlike a fatal crash when a big rig overturned on a ramp Friday in San Jose, California.

While news reports stated the incident was under investigation, one might speculate that the tractor trailer was going too fast in the curve.

Investigation in trucking crashes often extends beyond what happened immediately on the roadway. We often find that a pattern of disregard for safety in the management of the trucking company is an underlying factor. It may involve negligence in hiring, training and supervision of truck drivers, failure to adequately monitor compliance with hours of service rules, and failure to monitor driver speed and operations.

In Georgia, we represent families and individuals in serious neck and back injury, burn injury, brain injury, amputation injury, spinal cord injury, fracture injury and wrongful death cases arising from tractor trailer and big rig crashes.
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Published on: April 9, 2012

Trucker charged with vehicular homicide for I-985 deaths

By Ken Shigley

Wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases involving commercial trucks are seldom just about a moment’s inattention. Usually we find there are issues of training, supervision and rule violations, though frankly with a local delivery truck in rush hour it is sometimes simpler than that.

Lithonia truck driver Stephen Scott has been charged with second degree vehicular homicide and following too closely in the Friday crash that killed a Lawrenceville couple, Donna and John Kesse, on I-985 in Gwinnett County, according to media reports.

Traffic was slowed in the interstate’s southbound right-hand lane due to merging traffic from Ga. 20 about 3:20 p.m. Friday when a box truck driven by Scott slammed into the Keese vehicle, then careening into a Dodge Ram pickup truck and a Saturn minivan towing a small trailer with an ATV on it.
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Published on: April 6, 2012

2 killed when rearended by box truck on I-985

By Ken Shigley

Two people were killed this afternoon on I-985 southbound under Georgia 20 in Gwinnett County when the vehicle they occupied was rear-ended by a box truck, according to a report in the by Angel Brooks in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Reportedly, traffic was slowed or stopped at the ramp from Ga. 20 to I-985 south when the box truck crashed into a Nissan. See aerial photo.

The names of the two people killed will not be released until notification of the next of kin.
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Published on: March 19, 2012

U. S. Senate passes bill to improve tour bus safety

By Ken Shigley

Five years ago, a tour bus carrying the baseball team from Bluffton University in Ohio crashed in predawn darkness in Atlanta. I was part of the litigation team of Ohio and Georgia lawyers who represented the team members and their families. We finally concluded the cases last summer.

As a direct result of the Bluffton team bus crash, today the United States Senate passed a bill on tour bus safety that would, if enacted into law, require safety belts and stronger seating systems to protect occupants of such buses, improve driver training, and require anti-ejection glazing windows to prevent passengers from being thrown out of the motorcoach.

It remains to be seen what, if anything, will happen in the House of Representatives.
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Published on: January 30, 2012

Georgia passes law to streamline interstate discovery

By Ken Shigley

In my commercial trucking accidents law practice, we often need to subpoena business and medical records from other states, especially in interstate trucking personal injury and wrongful death litigation. In cases filed in state courts of Georgia, rather than federal courts, it has been necessary to comply with an arcane variety of differing state laws in order to do so.

Until recently in Michigan, for example, it was necessary to retain a lawyer in that state and spend roughly a thousand dollars just to get a routine subpoena for documents issued and served.

Last week, the Georgia legislature passed the Uniform Interstate Discovery and Depositions Act has finally passed in Georgia. This new uniform law, when enacted in all states, will make interstate discovery for cases in state courts almost as easy as it is in federal courts. It will enable Georgia lawyers to get subpoenas for depositions, document production and inspection of premises in other states that have enacted the same uniform law, and will make it easier for lawyers in those states to do the same in Georgia.

HB 46, sponsored by Representatives Jacobs, Lindsey, Willard, Oliver, Lane and Weldon (all friends of mine), almost passed last year but got caught in the legislative traffic jam in the Senate at the end of the 2011 session. It was one of the first substantive bills to pass this year and go to Governor Deal for signature.

This is reciprocal, and only available to lawyers when both states have passed the same law. At a meeting of the Southern Conference of Bar Presidents next week in New Orleans, I plan to make a pitch to my counterparts from other Southern states that have not yet enacted this law to put it on their State Bar legislative agendas. As shown on this map, the Southern states that have not yet passed it Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas.Those that have passed this law include Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi.

Here is what the new law provides:
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Published on: December 30, 2011

FMCSA bar use of hand held cell phones by commercial truck drivers

By Ken Shigley

For years we have explored cell phone distraction as a factor in the cause of motor vehicle accidents, including commercial trucking accidents. Discovery of cell phone records has become routine in litigation. We have read all the studies, deposed the experts and argued about the legal ramifications. I won’t rehash all that here.

Now the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has issued a rule barring use of hand held cell phones by commercial truck drivers in interstate commerce. The agency stated the rationale for the rule in part as follows:

Using a hand-held mobile telephone may reduce a driver’s situational awareness, decision making, or performance; and it may result in a crash, near-crash, unintended lane departure by the driver, or other unsafe driving action. Indeed, research indicates that reaching for and dialing hand-held mobile telephones are sources of driver distraction that pose a specific safety risk.

The agency summarizes much of the research on cell phone distraction in explaining its conclusion that “it is the action of taking one’s eyes off the forward roadway to reach for and dial a hand-held mobile telephone … that has the greatest risk.”
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Published on: December 30, 2011

Truck driving hours trimmed just a little

By Ken Shigley

Truck driver fatigue is a chronic issue in the causation of commercial truck accidents. Now the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has tweaked the rule yet again, but only at the outer margins of the hours of service rules.

Effective February 27, 2012, the FMCSA revises the hours of service (HOS) regulations so as to cut maximum work week from 82 to 70 hours on average. To combat the effects of chronic fatigue, the provision allows drivers to work intensely for one week, but will require them to compensate by taking more time off in the following week. This is being done

. . . to limit the use of the 34-hour restart provision to once every 168 hours and to require that anyone using the 34-hour restart provision have as part of the restart two periods that include 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. It also includes a provision that allows truckers to drive if they have had a break of at least 30 minutes, at a time of their choosing, sometime within the previous 8 hours. This rule does not include a change to the daily driving limit because the Agency is unable to definitively demonstrate that a 10-hour limit-which it favored in the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM)-would have higher net benefits than an 11-hour limit. The current 11-hour limit is therefore unchanged at this time. The 60- and 70-hour limits are also unchanged. The purpose of the rule is to limit the ability of drivers to work the maximum number of hours currently allowed, or close to the maximum, on a continuing basis to reduce the possibility of driver fatigue. Long daily and weekly hours are associated with an increased risk of crashes and with the chronic health conditions associated with lack of sleep. These changes will affect only the small minority of drivers who regularly work the longer hours.

The FMCSA explains that:

The goal of this rulemaking is to reduce excessively long work hours that increase both the risk of fatigue-related crashes and long-term health problems for drivers. A rule cannot ensure that drivers will be rested, but it can ensure that they have enough time off to obtain adequate rest on a daily and weekly basis. The objective of the rule, therefore, is to reduce both acute and chronic fatigue by limiting the maximum number of hours per day and week that the drivers can work.

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Published on: December 20, 2011

8.7% increase in trucking fatalities

By Ken Shigley

Fatalities in large truck accidents increased 8.7% in 2010, according to a report released last week by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration.

NHTSA said in its annual report that 3,675 people died in trucking related accidents in 2010, an increase of 295 over the 3,380 fatalities in 2009. The number injured in trucking accidents increased 12% from 17,000 to 19,000. (Those number are surely rounded off.)

NHTSA did not clearly identify a cause, but increased truck traffic due to gradual economic recovery is likely a major factor.
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Published on: November 15, 2011

Hit & run tractor trailer causes fatal wreck on I-285

By Ken Shigley

Atlantans woke this morning to the news that at 5:30 AM a hit and run tractor trailer caused a chain reaction accident on I-285 southbound in DeKalb County near Ponce de Leon Avenue. It hit a Ford Focus, knocking it into a Toyota Camry. Those drivers got out of their cars, apparently to inspect damage, and were hit by a fourth vehicle. Both were killed.

The tractor trailer left the scene and and last report had not been identified but law enforcement officers had launched a search. I am confident that the Georgia State Patrol SCRT(Specialized Collision Reconstruction Team) team will give this very high priority and do a superb job. The tractor trailer could well be in South Carolina or Florida by now.

The impact on morning rush hour traffic throughout the east side of metro Atlanta was monumental.
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Published on: November 13, 2011

Truck driver class actions spreading

By Ken Shigley

While my trucking litigation practice focuses largely on representation of individuals and families in personal injury and wrongful death cases arising from trucking accidents, a lot of those are truckers hurt in wrecks with other trucks. I’m working on several of those now.

Truck driving is hard, dangerous and underpaid work under difficult conditions. Too often the traditional “knight of the highway” becomes the “serf of the highway” when large trucking companies and shippers subject them to the “death of a thousand cuts” by shaving their pay, benefits and — for independent owner operators — their fuel allowances.

I haven’t yet heard it mentioned on the Road Dog Trucker channel (106) on SiriusSM satellite radio (of course, I switch between that and country music), but a new trend around the country is the truck driver class action, in which representatives of thousands of truckers working for large companies band together. Some examples:

– When Tulsa-based Arrow Trucking shut down without warning at Christmas 2009, its drivers were left stranded without pay, benefits or even a way to get home from wherever they were. A class action for 260 former Arrow drivers in bankruptcy court against the top officers of the company is producing a $2 million settlement according to an article this week in Land Line.

– YRC Worldwide Inc. has agreed to pay $6.5 million to settle four class action lawsuits arising from the company’s practice of contributing company shares to match employees’ contributions to the 401(k) plan. When the company’s stock tanked, affected employees lost most of their retirements savings. YRC said the settlement, if accepted by the court, would be covered by its insurance company, according to an article in the Kansas City Star.

– Schneider Logistics is being sued in a class action alleging wage and hour and working condition violations at a Wal-Mart distribution center it operates in California, according to this news report.

This reminds me of the successful class actions against Wal-Mart for denying workers rest and meal breaks, refusing to pay overtime, and manipulating time cards to lower employees’ pay. One of the tricks was to shave every employee’s hourly pay by an amount that likely would not be noticed by workers but added up to millions of dollars for the company. Those resulted in a $172 million jury verdict in California, a $78 million jury verdict in Pennsylvania, $6.5 million bench trial judgment in Minnesota, settlement of $640 million in 63 federal and state class-action wage-and-hour lawsuits, plus another $40 million settlement in Massachusetts.

“Little birdies” have been telling me that the same sort of abuses occur regularly in some large LTL trucking companies that pay drivers by the hour rather than by the mile. We are putting the team together to handle cases in this category for Georgia truckers if they arise. I can’t say which companies are guilty of this, but some of the largest LTL trucking lines in the US include:

– Con-way Freight
– FedEx Freight – YRC (Yellow-Roadway Corporation)
– ABF Freight System – Old Dominion Freight Line – UPS Freight
– Watkins Motor Lines – Southeastern Freight – Roadrunner – USF Continue reading →