Articles Posted in Trucking regulations

In trucking accident personal injury litigation in Georgia, plaintiffs often assert a claim for attorney fees and expenses of litigation including attorney fees under O.C.G.A. § 13-6-11, which was enacted as part of the Code of 1863. A decision this week by the Georgia Court of Appeals relied on existing case authority that an award…

Large truck operations are governed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations and largely identical state trucking safety rules. Sometimes people are surprised that these safety rules no not apply to tractor trailers only. Under 49 CFR 390.5, a commercial motor vehicle is defined to include any self-propelled or towed motor vehicle used on a…

Truck driver fatigue is one of the most common cause of catastrophic trucking crashes that I see in my law practice. Many times we have combed through the paper logs maintained by truck drivers, sometimes referred to as “comic books,” and meticulously compared them to other records generated in the course of a cross-country trip.…

“Sunday storms blamed for I-85 semi collision,” shouted a headline in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution last Monday. The accompanying article stated that heavy rain …could be to blame for a tractor-trailer crash near Spaghetti Junction. Driving rain may have caused two tractor-trailers heading north on Interstate 85 to crash and overturn in DeKalb County late Sunday…

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…

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…

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…

New ideas for trucking safety don’t pop up very often. Thanks to fellow trucking safety trial lawyer Michael Leizerman in Ohio for bringing this one to my attention. Earlier this month, Illinois enacted a law to improve the GPS data available to truck drivers. The goal is to provide better routing details specific to trucking…

Plans for truck-only lanes on metro Atlanta expressways are among the aspirations cut from the Atlanta Regional Commission’s transportation long-range plans released this week. The ailing economy and strapped government budgets led the ARC to ax or defer beyond my likely lifetime: – optional toll lanes alongside I-75 and I-575 in Cobb and Cherokee counties…

While Georgia is a long way from the Mexican border, as a tractor trailer and big rig accident trial lawyer based in Atlanta, I have for several years followed the controversy over allowing Mexican trucking companies to operate in the United States. Concerns about safety rules and practices in Mexican trucking have simmered since 1995.…