When a loved one is killed or catastrophically injured in a collision with a tractor trailer, there may be a temptation to wait for a “decent interval” before hiring a lawyer who specializes in commercial trucking trial practice. The trucking company’s insurer may encourage that reluctance by saying some soothing…
ABCO Transportation, Inc., a refrigerated freight haulder based in Dade City, Florida, has a chronically unsatisfactory record with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration with regard to unsafe driving violations. In my experience as a trucking trial attorney, when a trucking company has a record as bad as ABCO, often…
Wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases involving commercial trucks are seldom just about a moment’s inattention. Usually we find there are issues of training, supervision and rule violations, though frankly with a local delivery truck in rush hour it is sometimes simpler than that. Lithonia truck driver Stephen Scott has…
In my commercial trucking accidents law practice, we often need to subpoena business and medical records from other states, especially in interstate trucking personal injury and wrongful death litigation. In cases filed in state courts of Georgia, rather than federal courts, it has been necessary to comply with an arcane…
For years we have explored cell phone distraction as a factor in the cause of motor vehicle accidents, including commercial trucking accidents. Discovery of cell phone records has become routine in litigation. We have read all the studies, deposed the experts and argued about the legal ramifications. I won’t rehash…
Fatalities in large truck accidents increased 8.7% in 2010, according to a report released last week by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. NHTSA said in its annual report that 3,675 people died in trucking related accidents in 2010, an increase of 295 over the 3,380 fatalities in 2009. The…
Throughout rural Georgia, clearly unsafe log and pulpwood trucks operate on the highways with little apparent concern for safety of the public with whom they share the roads. Just as trucking accident cases are different from car wreck cases, log truck cases are different from other trucking accident cases. –…
As a trucking accident attorney in Atlanta, I have sometimes wondered how can one predict which truck drivers will be in crashes. Now a study by the American Transportation Research Institute reveals the predictive value of driver records. Drawing on data from 582,772 U.S. truck drivers over a two-year time…
Monday morning, an unidentified man died when he drove his Honda into the rear of an unoccupied tractor-trailer truck parked on the shoulder of a southbound ramp on to Interstate 85 in DeKalb County., according to a report by Rhonda Cash of the Atlanta Journal Constitution. While strange to the…
Trucking safety practices over the past year and a half have been impacted by adoption of the Comprehensive Safety Analysis (CSA) program. The CSA has three components that measure safety performance, evaluating high-risk behaviors and crafting appropriate interventions. For commercial motor carriers, the standards significantly alter how truckers and companies…