According to the Associated Press a tractor trailer was driven through blinding fog and smoke on a coastal highway in North Carolina, near Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, and struck and killed Deputy Steven Boehm and a Firefighter Gene Thomas early Saturday, killing them. The deaths were tragic and, worse, easily preventable.
The Federal Motor…
Current DOT drug tests can be beaten, easily, by truck drivers. In fact even if all the procedures are followed urine samples can be switched, at least that is what the Drug and Alcohol Testing Association has stated. I would list the various ways to cheat but that has already been supplied to truck drivers…
Staff writer Ben Benton of the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported Thursday, April 12, 2008, on the statistics from the Tennessee Industry Road Block at Monteagle, Tennessee. The Roadblock was run by the Tennessee Highway Patrol’s Commercial Vehicle Division. The results?
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I just returned from a presentation by DriveCam www.drivecam.com that could really help trucking companies reduce claims AND eliminate risky drivers from their fleet. DriveCam works much like an event data recorder discussed in prior blogs. Essentially it is a camera mounted in the cab of the truck that will retain several seconds of video of…
The U.S. Court of Appeals, for the District of Columbia Circuit, on Wednesday, January 23rd, denied Public Citizen’s motion to vacate the interim regulations adopted by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), keeping in place the rule increasing the time drivers are allowed behind the wheel from 10 hours to 11. The 10% increase in driver’s hours was previously struck…
Because my firm specializes in litigating collisions involving tractor trailers, frequently I get asked if I believe all truck drivers are dangerous. The answer is a resounding NO.
A fine example of the best in the trucking industry is the Small Trucking Association’s Team 2007. The members of Team 2007 are perfect examples of safe…
Training remains the number one way to prevent truck rollovers according to government and industry officials. A 2007 report by Battelle Memorial Institute for the FMCSA found “75% [of rollovers] are attributed to driver error.” The primary cause was running off the road, caused by driver fatigue or inattentiveness.”
Trucking companies could reduce rollovers by…
The American Trucking Association (ATA) has announced plans to lobby states to put large truck company profits over the well being of owner-operators (O-O) (See Transportation Topics, December 10, 2007 page 1). Specifically the ATA stated that they were lobbying states to ensure owner operators were exempted from workers compensation laws (stating O-O’s had to be…
It is not surprising that the FMCSA was taken back to court as they proposed keeping the 11 hour rule which has been struck down by the courts. This topic has been discussed in my prior blogs extensively. The proposed rule is simply dangerous. The safety studies cited for safer highways fail to take into…
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has issued an Interim Final Rule (IFR) putting into place the same 11 Hours of Service Regulation (HOS) that was struck down, only a few months ago, by the courts as being unsafe. The press announcement from the FMCSA on this issue can be found at: www.fmcsa.dot.gov/about/news/news-releases/2007/121107.htm
Predictably…