Ignorance of Trucking Rules Is No Excuse

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 which are applicable to that motor carrier’s operations.”  It also states that “Every driver and employee shall be instructed regarding, and shall comply with, all applicable regulations contained in this subchapter.”

49 C.F.R. § 390.5(e) requires that trucking companies must be familiar with trucking regulations and instruct their drivers, dispatchers and other employees.

49 C.F.R. § 392.1 provides: “Every motor carrier, its officers, agents, representatives, and employees responsible for the management, maintenance, operation, or driving of commercial motor vehicles, or the hiring, supervising, training, assigning, or dispatching of drivers, shall be instructed in and comply with the rules in this part.”

So there is no doubt that trucking companies and their employees are absolutely responsible for being familiar with the rules and following them.

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Ken Shigley is a civil justice attorney in Atlanta, Georgia whose practice focuses on representing people who are catastrophically injured, and families of those killed, when companies violate rules designed for protection of public safety. Currently he is a national board member of the Interstate Trucking Litigation Group of the American Association for Justice. He has been listed as a “Super Lawyer” (Atlanta Magazine), among the “Legal Elite” (Georgia Trend Magazine), and in the Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers (Martindale).  He is a Certified Civil Trial Advocate of the National Board of Trial Advocacy. Mr. Shigley has extensive experience representing parties in trucking and bus accidents, products liability, catastrophic personal injury, wrongful death, brain injury, spinal cord injury and burn injury cases.  He is alsoTreasurer of the 40,000 member State Bar of Georgia.