Georgia Truck Accident Attorney Blog

As an Atlanta trial lawyer handling trucking accident cases throughout Georgia, and occasionally in neighboring states, I watch doings at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) with considerable interest. The news about FMCSA coming out of Washington this week was pretty scathing.

The Senate Appropriations Committee’s Transportation, Housing and Urban Development report on the FMCSA blasted the agency for its failure to put the top priority on safety, expressing "immense frustration." See reports by Barb Kampbell on TheTrucker.com and by Justin Carretta of Fleetowner.com.

A few key points are:

* “FMCSA has shown a pattern of undermining its safety mission by proposing weak regulations and failing to provide adequate oversight and enforcement of existing regulations.”

* Regarding the Hours of Service rule, “the rules that FMCSA has proposed fail to achieve maximum safety benefits, and in some instances may undermine safety … clear and consistent regulations are critical to the industry, so that they can manage operations in a compliant way; FMCSA has not provided that consistency.”

* In the area of drug testing, investigators from the Government Accountability Office found that 22 of 24 drug testing centers failed to follow sample collection protocols. In some instances, drivers fail drug tests at one location and are simply transferred to another area to continue driving.

* A 2001 National Transportation Safety Board recommendation to FMCSA that it take action to prevent medically unqualified drivers from operating commercial vehicles has not been satisfied.

Continue reading " Senate committee blasts Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for failure to protect public on driving hours and drug testing " »

As a Georgia trucking safety trial lawyer based in Atlanta, I often see the tragic effects of fatigue among truck drivers who are pushed by trucking companies and shippers to perform beyond the normal limits of human capability.

On the other side of the Atlantic, SafeDrive Europe has released its Driver Fatigue Monitor, which is intended to cut the number of fatigue-related wrecks by alerting drivers to the first sign of drowsiness. The Driver Fatigue Monitor was developed by sleep expert Dr. Richard Grace alongside the Carnegie Mellon Institute in Pennsylvania and is already available in the US. According to a report in Logistics Manager, the device measures drowsiness by checking the per cent of eye closure through a real time camera and computer. If a driver appears to be reaching a dangerously fatigued state the monitor is designed to notify them through audible and visible indicators, giving them enough time to pull over safely.

It can be permanently installed into a vehicle or is available as a portable version, which plugs into the cigarette lighter.

Continue reading " Driver Fatigue Monitor seeks to cut fatigue-related crashes " »

The inside of a truck cab offers more electronics and gadgets than ever before. A trucker can monitor how his truck and engine are performing, GPS mapping to stay on the right route, email communications with his dispatcher, cell phone conversations with family, and perhaps a reckless few play a movie or surf the web while driving.

A recent study of driver distraction by Volvo concludes:

It is positive that the number of safety and information systems in modern vehicles is increasing. Taken individually, they offer many benefits as regards traffic safety and productivity, for instance, but the driver does risk being over-burdened by too much information. Especially bearing in mind that many drivers also have their mobile phones and perhaps also a GPS navigator in the vehicle. In order not to jeopardise traffic safety, we have developed solutions that allow all the systems to interact smoothly,

If you are driving 60 mph and take your eyes off the road for three seconds, you will drive the equivalent length of a football field without knowing what's going on around you. Therefore, it is perhaps not surprising that a major 2006 study, sponsored by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Virginia Tech, found that nearly 80% of crashes, and 65% of near-crashes, involved some form of driver inattention, such as cell phone use and drowsiness, within three seconds before the event.

The Washington Times"> reports a study last year found high numbers of drivers who were distracted by talking on cell phones, sending text messages, reading the newspaper and even shaving while driving. A followup study cites the availability of technology was mentioned by 35% as the reason distracted driving is so common, and 48% considered cell phones and other technology use to be the most dangerous distraction. Nearly half of teens and Gen Y drivers blamed having to stay connected socially as a reason why they drive while distracted. For boomers, the pressure was more work-related.

When I started out as a young prosecutor, public awareness of the problem of drinking while driving was nowhere near what it is now. It was too often a matter of jokes rather than revulsion.

It appears that public awareness of the dangers of cell phone use and texting while driving is now about where awareness of drinking and driving was in the late seventies.

Continue reading " Truck accidents may be caused by distractions of electronic devices in truck cabs " »