Georgia Truck Accident Attorney Blog

As a trucking accident injury trial attorney in Atlanta, Georgia, I sometimes run across truck drivers about whom I wonder how they ever passed a medical exam. In a case last year, when I dug into records and took depositions, I found that a truck driver with extensive heart disease had open heart surgery. Soon thereafter he returned to work driving an 18 wheeler over the road.

How did he pass his Commercial Drivers License (CDL) medical exam to return to work so soon after open heart surgery? He went to a chiropractor for a CDL medical certificate at 8 AM before reporting for work at 8:30 AM.

In another case, I found that a truck driver's own physician said he should not have left home without an oxygen tank due to COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disesase), and lack of oxygen to the brain made him unfit to drive.

In both cases, the truck drivers' medical conditions were contributing factors in their poor judgments in operating 80,000 pound big rig vehicles.

Now, a news story on MS-NBC has revealed just how easy it is for a long-haul trucker to renew medical certification. A chiropractor or advance practice nurse at a truck stop medical clinic can renew a trucker's medical certificate in 20 minutes -- even after open heart surgery.

And truck drivers who are denied certification for any reason can simply head down the road and try another "med stop" because data tracking of this issue is nonexistent. Moreover, even when a trucker is caught without proper medical certification, immediate license revocation may not result

While the National Transportation Safety Board in 2002 proposed enhanced medical standards for truckers, the response has been minimal. Over the ensuing six years, over 800 fatal crashes were blamed, at least in part, on medically unqualified drivers.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has begun tightening supervision of medical certification, but for those killed or maimed by unfit truck drivers in the meantime, it's too little and too late.

Continue reading " Trucking safety impaired by inadequate control of medical certification process " »

The school bus crash this week at Temple, Georgia, highlights several issues about school bus safety.

* According to an eyewitness on the bus, Rashawn Walker, the 17 year old student who was ejected and killed, had pulled back another student and saved her from being ejected as the bus rolled over. Though he may have saved another student's life, he was ejected and killed. His death is an unspeakable tragedy for his family, but from a theological standpoint there are worse things than laying down your life for a friend.

* The bus driver trainee had a CDL but lacked proper certification for operation of a school bus, according to a report in the Atlanta Journal Constitution. The degree of training required of school bus driver varies widely among Georgia counties.

* The school bus was a new one equipped with a video camera. Video recordings have not yet been released but may be crucial in determining what happened.

* The lack of seat belts on school buses is yet again an issue for public debate. The National Center for School Bus Safety lays out the arguments. When we worked on the Bluffton University baseball team bus crash in Atlanta a few years ago, one of the good things to come from that tragedy was political pressure for new DOT rules that, we hope, will require seat belts on tour buses within three years. However, school bus passenger seats are still excluded from such a requirement.

Continue reading " Student killed in school bus wreck died saving others; trainee driver was not certified " »

As a transportation safety lawyer based in Atlanta, regularly dealing with truck and bus crashes, I see tragic recurring themes over the years. Here it goes again.

Today, a high school student was killed and ten injured in a school bus crash in Carroll County, Georgia. As a parent of two college age children, the news calls to mind the many times my kids rode school buses and team buses. We parents trust the schools and the bus drivers with our the lives of our children. We expect our children to bury us, and to bury our children seems contrary to the order of nature.

Regarding today's incident in Carroll County, the Georgia State Patrol reported that the bus when it crashed on Highway 113 near Hog Liver Road between Carrollton and Temple, near I-20, around 2 p.m. According to news media reports, the bus flipped and several students were ejected from it.

In Georgia, school personnel are virtually immune from civil liability, but immunity is waived to the extent of insurance coverage for injuries and deaths in school bus operations, including loading and unloading.

Issues involving driver qualifications, tire failure, lack of passenger restraints, etc., come up time and time again. We represented as local counsel in Atlanta ten Bluffton University baseball players from Ohio with regard to injuries sustained in the crash of their team bus in Atlanta in 2007. Earlier we represented the mother of a college student killed when a team van crashed and he was ejected.

Continue reading " Student killed in Carroll County school bus rollover " »