Articles Posted in Trucking Rules

As president of the State Bar of Georgia, I have occasion to work on a number of issues and controversies beyond the scope of my own personal injury, wrongful death and commercial trucking accident trial practice.  The following is excerpted from an article by Kathleen Joyner in the Fulton County Daily Report on September 23,…

We often see the tragic outcomes of catastrophic trucking accidents in my Atlanta-based law practice. Therefore, when I travel on the highways I am notice the minority of truckers who ignore safety rules. Usually they get by with it, without a bad outcome, but slackness about safety will almost inevitably lead to catastrophe sooner or…

In truck crash litigation in Georgia, we see how smaller trucking companies often have the least focus on safety rules enforcement. For example, I am  now preparing for trial in a case where a small trucking company was repeatedly fined for scores of  violations of the same safety rules over a three year period before…

Like most Atlantans, I was stuck at home for three days this week, catching up on home repair projects and watching weather reports and scenes of truck wrecks on TV.  Fortunately, there was no power failure. I recall once in my childhood at Mentone, Alabama, we had an ice storm that closed schools for two weeks…

As a trucking safety attorney in Georgia, I sometimes find trucking companies trying to disown their driver’s safety violations. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, which are designed to protect safety of members of the public, clearly require trucking companies to require their employees to obey the driver regulations. 49 C.F.R. § 390.11 requires: “Whenever .…

You may have heard that “ignorance of the law is no excuse.”  That is clearly true in the interstate commercial trucking context. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations say that in three different ways. 49 C.F.R. § 390.3(e) requires that “Every employer shall be knowledgeable of and comply with all regulations contained in this subchapter…

A basic understanding of the history of federal motor carrier regulation is helpful for comprehension of the current regulatory structure. Motor Carrier Act of 1935. Arising from the combination of increasing motor transport of freight and the trauma of the Great Depression, the Motor Carrier Act of 1935 focused primarily on financial stability of motor…

The framers of the U. S. Constitution recognized in 1787 that no individual state could adequate deal with regulation of interstate commerce, so that was made one of the core functions of the federal government along with national defense and a few others. The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution provides that any state law that…

Today I’m heading home from the American Association for Justice annual meeting in San Francisco. On Saturday, I was one of the speakers at the Interstate Trucking Litigation Group seminar.  I had a fairly dry topic, though one necessary in these difficult economic times, “Hard Times in Trucking Litigation: What to Do When the Trucking Defendant…

Both citizen safety advocates, led by Stephen Owings, an Atlanta financial planner, and the American Trucking Association have joined in seeking rules requiring speed limiting devices on interstate commercial trucks. They say the devices will save both lives and money. Owings founded Road Safe America after his son, Cullum, was killed on a Virginia interstate…