Thousands of those containers are unloaded from the ships onto truck trailers and trains at every major port to be transported across the country. Georgia highways are full of intermodal containers imported through the ports of Savannah, Jacksonville and Charleston.

Often the trailers used in these intermodal operations are old chassis repainted to look good but poorly maintained. Too often the trailers that were loaded in Shanghai or Rotterdam contained unbalanced loads that ride fine on a ship but are dangerous in highway curves.

Over the past several years there has been increasing concern about safety of intermodal freight operations.

Now the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has announced plans to add a fifth equipment marking option to its rules, allowing chassis to be identified through a system that uses technology to match equipment to the company responsible for its maintenance.

They hope this will clear the way for industry efforts to launch a global registry for intermodal equipment.

Of more immediate interest to families of people catastrophically injured in crashes of trucks hauling these freight containers is the difficulty of reaching the insurance coverage of the intermodal companies. Often the inland truck hauling is brokered to a small trucking company or owner-operator with only $750,000 to $1,000,000 liability coverage. That sounds like a lot, but when you're looking at a $20,000,000 life care plan for a catastrophic injury, it's a drop in the bucket.

Courts in Georgia have had a hard time coming to terms with the totality of intermodal shipping, tending to look at just the tip end of the spear and not at who is throwing the spear.

Last Friday, I spent a day in St. Louis at a seminar by David Nissenberg from San Diego, author of the book, Law of Commercial Trucking. He is a scholar of this area of law, and has painstakingly put together the legal theory to connect all the dots and reach the insurance policies of the ocean shipping companies that bring the containers into the US and load them on the trucks. In a tour de force, he combines international treaties, U. S. maritime laws and regulations, standard maritime bills of lading and other shipping documents, interlocking provisions of the Motor Carrier Act and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, Restatement of Torts, Restatement of Agency, etc.

David hasn't published a paper on this. There are no cases on point yet anywhere in the U.S. To persuade a judge who is busy, understaffed, and knows little about this area of the law, will require some masterful explanation.

But when a catastrophic container freight trucking case comes along, we're ready.

This is a great lesson for those naive lawyers who think an commercial trucking accident is just a bigger car wreck.

Examples include driver fatigue or illness, unwillingness to participate in an illegal activity, or a reasonable belief that a vehicle is unsafe because of worn tires, missing headlights, or low air pressure in brake system. STAA is supposed to protect drivers by preventing firing or other retaliatory action from truck companies. However, without effective legal representation those rights can be meaningless.

I don't handle STAA claims. I could probably fill up my caseload with them, based on the number of calls I get from truck drivers whose employers insist that they run illegally, but there aren't enough hours in the day to do everything.

If you are a truck driver whose employer gives you a choice between running illegal or losing your job, you might contact Truckers Justice Center , 900 West 128th Street, Suite 104, Burnsville, MN 55337, Telephone 952.224.9166, Fax 952.230.7875.

The incident immediately brought to mind the crash of a tour bus carrying the Bluffton University baseball team as it passed through Atlanta on I-75 in 2007, and the crash of a University of West Georgia cheerleader van on I-20 in 1997. I was part of the joint prosecution group in both of those cases.

Several Morehouse band members were taken by ambulance to area hospitals, while others were taken by a transfer bus to be checked out fro injuries.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, 49 CFR §392.14 requires:

Extreme caution in the operation of a commercial motor vehicle shall be exercised when hazardous conditions, such as those caused by . . . rain . . . adversely affect visibility or traction. Speed shall be reduced when such conditions exist.

The Commercial Drivers License Manual directs that speed should be lowered one-third below the posted speed limit in rainy conditions.

Chances are the bus has a data recorder to document the speed before the bus hydroplaned. My educated hunch is that the speed had not been reduced by one-third.

A Certified Civil Trial Advocate of the National Board of Trial Advocacy, 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). In addition to trucking litigation, he has broad experience in products liability, catastrophic personal injury, wrongful death, spinal cord injury, brain injury and burn injury cases. Currently he is Treasurer of the 41,000 member State Bar of Georgia.This post is subject to our ethical disclaimer.

Christian Jennings at WALB-TV in Albany, reported that Julie Tyler, who made pictures of school children as a photographer for LifeTouch Portraits, was killed instantly in a side underride with a big rig operated by William Fishbaugh, 61, of Ohio. He was held at the Worth County jail on charges of running a stop sign, reckless driving and first degree vehicular homicide.

According to Georgia State Trooper Scott McClure, "The tractor trailer drug the vehicle down the road about 500 feet." McClure continued, "He was unfamiliar with the area, but that's more reason to pay attention while you're out driving." .

Fishbaugh is a driver for Dutch Maid Logistics, Inc., based in Willard, Ohio. Dutch Maid is an interstate motor carrier with 91 power units, specializing in refrigerated shipments of fresh produce.

A troubling piece of information is that Dutch Maid has had dramatically unsatisfactory driver safety ratings for each of the last six biannual reporting periods. Moving violation data on Dutch Maid during that time period does not identify individual drivers. Reports of out of service violations by Dutch Maid drivers have primarily involved violation of driver impairment, fatigue and hours of service rules.

Earlier this year, Dutch Maid lost an appeal of a suit against its former insurance carrier over liability insurance issues arising out of a 2001 Michigan crash caused by an inattentive Dutch Maid driver in which two people were killed.

Dutch Maid Logistics is also a defendant in another negligence lawsuit in Allentown, Pennsylvania in 2008.

A Certified Civil Trial Advocate of the National Board of Trial Advocacy, 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). In addition to trucking litigation, he has broad experience in products liability, catastrophic personal injury, wrongful death, spinal cord injury, brain injury and burn injury cases. Currently he is Treasurer of the 41,000 member State Bar of Georgia.This post is subject to our ethical disclaimer.

This Sunday, I want to call attention to a more positive story about truckers. CNN ran a profile of Rev. Joe Hunter, chaplain to truckers, who reaches his mobile congregation reaches out to truckers at fuel stops, in parking lots, on the CB and through a radio show called "Heaven's Road." He holds worship services at Wednesday night service at the Truckers Chapel at a truck stop on I-75 south of Atlanta.

Just as it is tough for truck drivers to find nutritious food at places where an 18 wheeler can easily park, Rev. Hunter points out that most churches can't park an 18 wheelers.

Recently on the short section of I-24 from Chattanooga to Nashville that dips down into Dade County, Georgia, a truck going too fast for rainy conditions lost control, hit another vehicle. Both vehicles crossed into the eastbound lanes and struck two more vehicles. Seven seven people were injured, and some were transported to Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga. There is no word on their conditions.

The report from WRCH-TV in Chattanooga doesn't specify what type of truck was involved. If it was a commercial truck governed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, then 49 C.F.R. § 392.14 requires that "extreme caution in the operation of a commercial motor vehicle shall be exercised when hazardous conditions, such as those caused by . . rain . .. "

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, chair of the surface transportation subcommittee, told President Obama's nominee for FMCSA director nominee Ann Ferro, at a Senate confirmation hearing, that the motor carrier administration is "an agency in dire need of reform," and that "given your ties, Ms. Ferro, to the trucking industry ... I am concerned about your ability to take the bold action we need to keep Americans safe."

In her opening statement, Ferro talked the talked about reform of trucking safety regulation in her opening statement:

"Uncompensated time, compensation by the mile or load, professional drivers classified as laborers – these are all aspects of a supply-chain model that rewards squeezing transportation costs out of the equation; factors that shift the cost onto the driving public and professional driver."

"Furthermore, the agency must get on with considering a universal electronic on board recorder rule, improving the Hours of Service rule, rolling out tougher standards for entry, implementing effective identification and sanctioning high risk carriers."

The committee did not vote on Ferro's nomination. Additional questions will be submitted to the nominee, who will have until Tuesday to respond.

To say that it's unusual for the New York Times to take an editorial position on trucking safety is quite and understatement. But it happened today.

Here are excepts from the editorial:

President Obama made a peculiar choice in June when he nominated Anne Ferro, a major trucking industry lobbyist in Maryland, to lead the agency that oversees truck safety. On its face, Ms. Ferro’s selection violates the spirit of Mr. Obama’s decision to limit the ability of lobbyists to enter government as high officials and influence policy from within.

The order bars hiring anyone who lobbied an executive-branch agency within the past two years, which technically means federally registered lobbyists. But it is hard to see how naming a trucking industry insider like Ms. Ferro, the president of the Maryland affiliate of the American Trucking Associations, to lead the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration squares with Mr. Obama’s promise of “a clean break” from business as usual.

. . .

Ms. Ferro’s record on road safety includes some pluses. As the chief of Maryland’s motor vehicle agency, from 1997 to 2003, she implemented a graduated licensing system for new drivers and an ignition interlock program for drunken drivers.

But her more relevant experience these past six years was in supporting the trucking industry’s efforts to thwart and defeat policies and programs needed to protect the public and promote the health and safety of truck drivers. Just in January, Ms. Ferro co-authored a letter to The Baltimore Sun essentially defending the Bush administration’s loosening of regulations on drivers’ schedules and driver fatigue in defiance of considerable evidence of danger and two court decisions.

Ms. Ferro’s record, we believe, is disqualifying. With more than 5,000 fatal truck crashes a year, Americans cannot afford conflicts of interest in the running of their truck safety agency.

A friend who is heavily involved in advocacy for highway safety tells me that several truck safety advocates and organizations are actively opposing her nomination. Several of them will be at the Senate confirmation hearing this afternoon. He tells me she is a really nice lady and says all the right things. But safety advocates have heard all the right things for 20 years with no follow-up. When they met with her and Secretary LaHood, there was no specific discussion by the Secretary LaHood about how he will direct her to will bring change to the FMCSA.

More later.

My friend Tommy Malone of Atlanta and Randy Scarlett of San Francisco represented Drew Bianche, a young man who had just graduated from college with a 4.0 GPA and had been accepted to medical school. Drew suffered a severe traumatic brain injury when two tractor trailers approaching from opposite directions on an unreasonably dangerous and narrow roadway sideswiped each other causing one of the trucks to the hit car Drew was riding in as a passenger.

The verdict was all compensatory damages, no punitive damages. Five percent of fault was allocated to the state, and 95% to the truckers.

Yesterday in Walker County -- near where I attended school for six years in Chattooga County -- 3 members of one family were killed when a bucket truck used for tree trimming crossed the center line of Highway 136 and struck two vehicles.

The three family members were airlifted to Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga but did not survive. They were Anthony Thomas Hixson Jr., 36., of LaFayette, his 13 year old daughter, and his brother-in-law, James Eugene Whitaker, 45, of Ringgold.

The bucket truck belonged to Townsend Tree Service, an Indiana based company that has a large fleet of bucket trucks used for tree-trimming, clearance and vegetation management services for power and communication lines, pipelines and roadways. Townsend's registered agent for service of process in Georgia is two blocks from my office.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, which are intended to protect safety of the public, require trucking companies to see to it that their employees to obey the driver regulations.

49 C.F.R. § 390.11 requires: “Whenever . . . a duty is prescribed for a driver or a prohibition is imposed upon the driver, it shall be the duty of the motor carrier to require observance of such duty or prohibition. If the motor carrier is a driver, the driver shall likewise be bound.”

Yesterday in Atlanta, a school bus driver lost track of a kindergarten student who had exited the bus, and ran over the child. According to an article by Alexis Stevens in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Usher Elementary 5-year-old pupil was one of six kids to get off at the bus stop, located near the intersection of Vanderbilt Court and Hobart Drive, just north of I-20.

The bus driver has been charged with second degree vehicular homicide and failure to use due regard for school bus driver safety procedure, according to the Atlanta Police Department.

While Georgia law provides broad immunity to public school systems, there is liability to the extent of insurance coverage for negligence in operation of school buses. The immunity issues do not apply to privately operated school buses.

In Georgia, punitive damages are allowed "only in such tort actions in which it is proven by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant's actions showed willful misconduct, malice, fraud, wantonness, oppression, or that entire want of care which would raise the presumption of conscious indifference to consequences."

Punitive damages are capped at $250,000 in collision cases in Georgia unless there was an intent to harm, which the evidence would rarely if ever support.

I personally handled a trucking wrongful death and personal injury case where the court allowed a punitive damage claim against a trucking company due to evidence that the company "turned a blind eye" to hours of service violations, and dispatched back to back trips that could not be completed lawfully.

Other trucking cases where punitive damage claims were allowed include:

* a "forced dispatch system" where a truck driver could not refuse a load and keep his job, so that hours of service violations, etc., were inevitable.

* payment for speed of delivery, encouraging drivers to speed

* failure to check driving records, as required by regulations

* rigorous delivery schedule with penalties for late deliveries

* failure to provide maintenance mechanics with necessary tools

* failure to discipline truck driver for violations

* failure to monitor the truck driver's conduct, failure to conduct any investigation into the driver's hours of service, re-dispatching the truck driver even though he had exceeded his hour of service limitations; and failure to have effective procedures in place to verify drivers' hours of service when the company knew that hours of service regulations were in place to protect the safety of the monitoring public

* violation of hours of service rules, fatigued driving, falsification of driver logs, and failure of management to adequately monitor drivers' hours

* violation of hours of service rules and falsification of driver logs

* combination of knowledge of safety issues, speed, use of radar detector, driver’s history of violations, and lack of qualifications of safety director

* Ignore smoking brakes, failure to stop until brake drum falls apart

* stopped in the interstate's center lane for approximately 35 minutes before the collision without placing triangular warning devices on the highway, and failure to turn on tractor-trailer lights after it became dark

Some of the evidence that supports a claim for punitive damages is also useful in supporting a claim for "bad faith" attorney fees under OCGA 13-6-11, and for simply convincing a jury that the conduct justifies awarding adequate compensatory damages.

According to a report in the Dallas Morning News, this week in a courtroom in Cleburne, Texas, a truck driver for a drilling company made such a confession, leading to a $16 million settlement of a wrongful death case.

The family of Rhonda Kay Henson, 41, sued Pioneer Drilling and its driver for her death after two large pieces of gas well equipment fell from a Pioneer tractor-trailer. One piece, known as a spreader bar, struck Henson's truck and killed her.

On the witness stand, the truck driver admitted:

- He and other Pioneer officials falsified and back dated documents in his employee file after the accident.

- He was not aware of safety laws and regulations about securing and transporting large loads. Motor carriers are required to instruct employees on the regulations and assure that they comply.

- He had a long history of driving infractions including tickets, accidents, license suspensions and a citation for driving under the influence by a minor.

- He testified that he didn't know why he had lied to the court and jury.

After that testimony, court recessed and the parties entered into a settlement for $16 million.

The destruction of evidence and the lies do not surprise me. We see it all the time. The surprise is that he admitted it.

A while back, I was taking the deposition of a truck driver in Ohio who had killed a kid in Georgia. Eventually he confessed under oath that he had destroyed and backdated logs, and that he had been driving about double the legal hours at the time of the crash. I flew home thinking I was just the coolest lawyer since Perry Mason. When I called the client, I was told "we've been praying that if he had anything to get off his chest, he would." The prayers apparently worked.

I wonder who was praying in Texas!

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Currently Treasurer of the 40,000 member State Bar of Georgia, Ken Shigley is a trial attorney in Atlanta, Georgia. He has been listed among the "Legal Elite" (Georgia Trend Magazine), as a "Super Lawyer" (Atlanta 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, back injury, spinal cord injury and burn injury cases. He is on the national advisory board of the Association of Plaintiffs' Interstate Trucking Lawyers and the national board of the Interstate Trucking Litigation Group of the American Association for Justice. In the past three years he has been an invited speaker at continuing legal education programs on trucking litigation in Chicago, San Francisco, Las Vegas, St. Louis, New Orleans, Nashville, Amelia Island, Florida, and his hometown of Atlanta, and has obtained multiple seven-figure jury verdicts in truck and auto crash cases.