Articles Posted in Trucking Accidents

Allen Smith, a former truck driver who publishes the TruthAboutTrucking.com blog, has listed the “Top 10 Causes of Truck Accidents” as follows: 1. Prescription Drug Use 26% 2. Traveling Too Fast 23% 3. Unfamiliar with Roadway 22% 4. Over-the-counter Drug Use 18% 5. Inadequate Surveillance 14% 6. Fatigue 13% 7. Illegal Maneuver 9% 8. Exterior…

Driver fatigue is a major cause of highway accidents, including those involving long-haul truckers.  However, it can be difficult to prove fatigue was the cause of a crash since the crash itself wakes up the driver, despite the occasional confession and the strong inferences that can be drawn from truck driver logs that are not…

 Of 953 truckers faulted in fatal crashes from 2000 through 2005, a  Dallas Morning News investigative report found, at least one in four had been convicted of a criminal offense or received deferred adjudication before the crash.  Over 14 percent had committed drug or alcohol offenses prior to their accidents, and more than one in…

I have nothing against anyone with an impairment of vision or hearing.  I couldn’t live in my house if I did.  But sometimes safety trumps equal opportunity. One of those circumstances is in the operation of 80,000 pound tractor trailers at 70 mph on public highways.  Recently we encountered a situation in which a truck…

I have written several times this year about proposals for toll lanes for trucks on metro Atlanta interstate highways.  An article this week shows another reason why this may become a necessity. The Georgia Department of Transportation expects to spend $160 billion on road construction projects between 2005 and 2035. But revenues from the motor…

One of the disturbing things we encounter in trucking litigation is the lack of any regulatory requirement of screening for obstructive sleep apnea, even though so many truck drivers fit the profile to be at high risk for the disorder — middle aged, overweight, hyptertensive, sedentary, etc. According to a July 2002 study released by…

An article in today’s Dallas Morning News explains the obvious: “Trucking companies sometimes go to extraordinary lengths to avoid admitting fault in fatal accidents. They purge onboard computers, falsify records and destroy documents that federal law requires them to keep.” We’ve seen it too often.  The Shigley Law Firm  represents plaintiffs in wrongful death and…

The trucker who killed 5 students and injured 4 when he crashed into a Taylor University van in Indiana last April was grossly over the legal hours of service.  Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations limit interstate commercial truck drivers operators to no more than 11 hours of driving time following 10 hours off duty and…

The latest published study on truck driver fatigue hazards, conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, was published in todays’ issue (8/15/06) of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.  Dr. Allan Pack who headed the study said the tired truck drivers had impaired performance similar to that of…

Occasionally we encounter situations where a corporate defendant claims that the employee who was driving the business’s truck was on some personal mission, and therefore not in the course and scope of employment.  It is always important to develop the evidence of business related purposes that are somehow related to the trip, as well as…