Tired Truckers Deadly in Alabama

The Birmingham News reports today that tired truck drivers have killed 104 people on Alabama roads in the past three years. As we have frequently noted here, this is part of a national problem. From 2002 through 2004, the latest year for which statistics are available, there were 10,797 Alabama accidents in which the truck driver was listed on the wreck report as being at fault. In those crashes, 104 people died. That does not include the many instances in which driver fatigue was a dominant factor, but the reporting police officer did not mention it on the accident report. (I see that all the time. Recently an Ohio truck driver admitted to me in deposition that his log was completely falsified and he had been driving 20 of 24 hours before running over a family and killing their son, but the state trooper did not mention driver fatigue on the accident report because he relied on the phony log.) The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration says 15 percent of all truck crashes nationwide are caused by fatigue. Based on that percentage, 1,619 of the Alabama crashes during the three-year period were attributable to drowsiness.

The Shigley Law Firm represents plaintiffs in wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases statewide in Georgia, and in other states subject to the multijurisdictional practice and pro hac vice rules in each state. Ken Shigley was designated as a “SuperLawyer” in Atlanta Magazine and one of the “Legal Elite” in Georgia Trend Magazine. He is a Certified Civil Trial Advocate of the National Board of Trial Advocacy, Chair of the Southeastern Motor Carrier Liability Institute and former chair of the Georgia Insurance Law Institute. He particularly focuses on cases arising from truck wrecks and accidents (tractor trailers truck wrecks, semi truck wrecks,18 wheeler truck wrecks, big rig truck wrecks, log truck wrecks, dump truck wrecks).