Georgia Truck Accident Attorney Blog

Truck driver fatigue is a prime cause of catastrophic commercial trucking crashes that cause serious injuries and deaths. Over recent years in my Atlanta-based law practice, I have seen recurring controversy about the rules designed to combat driver fatigue. Well, here we go again.

This week the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration released for comment proposed changes in the Hours of Service rules. FMCSA must publish a final rule by July 26.

“A fatigued driver has no place behind the wheel of a large commercial truck,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said. “We are committed to an hours-of-service rule that will help create an environment where commercial truck drivers are rested, alert and focused on safety while on the job.”

Some of the highlights are:

- Current maximum driving time per day is 11 hours. FMCSA is considering both 10 and 11 hour limits.

- Current maximum on-duty time per day is 14 hours. FMCSA proposes 13 hours.

- On duty time would exclude any time resting in a parked commercial motor vehicle. Ideally, this would be utilized for "power naps" within the driving time window.

For more detail see the FMCSA summary and Notice of Rulemaking.

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Interstate trucking accidents keep happening, and as a trucking accident trial attorney in Atlanta, I keep seeing the tragic results. Many of those crashes are due at least in part to driver fatigue.

But in Washington the government is behind schedule for approval of revisions to truck drivers' hours of service rules, according to a report from Heavy Duty Trucking magazine's website.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration originally thought that the White House Office of Management and Budget would clear the proposal by the end of October. Now the FMCSA hopes that OMB and the White House will complete work on the proposal by the end of the year.

Trucking companies are anxious about the possibility that a rule change might significantly change drivers' work schedules. As readers of this blog know, I think some change of schedules might be a good thing for safety.

There is also concern about FMCSA's ability to process the voluminous comments it will no doubt receive and come up with a final rule by the court-ordered deadline of July 26, 2011.

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A fatal truck crash early Saturday morning on I-285 south of Atlanta highlighted an important safety rule governing interstate commercial trucking.

According to an article by George Mathis and Ty Tagamihe of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the incident began when the tractor-trailer was involved in a minor collision with another large truck and the two trucks had pulled over. The other truck pulled into the median, but the tractor-trailer stopped in the right lane of traffic.

A woman then drove under the tractor-trailer at highway speed and was killed.

A couple of years ago I spoke on trailer underride accidents at a national trucking litigation seminar in New Orleans. This is not the place to elaborate on the injury pattern in such crashes.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, at 49 C.F.R. § 392.22, requires that when a tractor trailer stops on a highway or shoulder, the driver must activate hazard warning signal flashers, and within ten minutes must place either bidirectional reflective triangles or flares.

In a situation like this, there is a question of proof of how long the truck had been stopped. That involves comparison of various electronic records -- in the electronic control modules of both trucks, possibly a Qualcomm or similar satellite communications system, cross referenced with 911 records and cell phone records of whoever called in the report of the crash, all of which are likely synchronized with either the national atomic clock in Boulder, Colorado, or the Naval Observatory.

Quick action is necessary to assure preservation of all data.

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