Articles Posted in Truck Accidents

With the actual growing shortage of qualified truck drivers, trucking companies may be tempted to lower their hiring standards to avoid turning down jobs. These companies should keep in mind that by scarifying safety for profit they put themselves at the mercy of a negligent hiring lawsuit.

Trucks are dangerous vehicles and motor carriers are responsible for any accident caused by their drivers. Therefore if the company was negligent in its hiring process in addition to the usual negligent driving claims it can also be held responsible for the personal injury, the death and the property damage resulting from an accident caused by its driver on a separate cause of action alleging negligent hiring. In some states based upon the driver’s record at the time of hiring punitive damages may be recoverable.

In his article “Negligent Driver Hiring Can Bite You in the Butt” , Don Jerrel, Associate Vice President at HNI, explains how hiring, training and keeping qualified and successful truck drivers will protect commercial carriers from expensive lawsuits and improve safety on the road by reducing truck accidents.

An increased number of people dying in MTA bus collisions in NYC prompted Traffic Safety Advocates to ask that The MTA be included in the Vision Zero plan to end traffic fatalities. (See New York Post)

For the first 3 months of 2014, 5 people lost their lives in a MTA bus accident. In the most recent case a young pedestrian, 23 year old Marisol Martinez (picture), was killed in a crosswalk after witnesses said the bus driver didn’t yield. (see previous post). Another young women, Martha Tibillin-Guamug, 25, died after she was struck by a bus in a busy intersection of Brooklyn (see Streetblog) and in January, Pedro Santiago a bicyclist died after colliding with a MTA bus in Harlem. (see previous blog)

In another case, a motorist died after having a stroke and striking a bus. In the fifth case the bus driver died after an out of control drunk driver crashed into his bus (see previous blog).

Bus and truck accidents related to driver fatigue often happen because drivers have been tampering with the paper logbook by not accurately reporting the time they really spent behind the wheels.

To reduce hours of service violations and decrease the paperwork burden associated with hours-of-service recordkeeping, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration proposed yesterday the use of mandatory Electronic Logbooks for interstate commercial bus and truck companies (dowload proposal here).

The proposal covers all technical aspects of the electronic logbook as well as the costs and benefits for commercial carriers. To protect the drivers from harassment, the device will have the option of being muted or turned down when the driver is in sleeper berth mode.

To reduce the number of truck accidents on American roads by keeping unsafe trucking companies off the road, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) launched in 2010 a program called CSA which stands for Compliance, Safety, Accountability.

The FMCSA has not fully implemented this program yet and was previously criticized by the Government Accountability Office and by the American Trucking Association for being too lax (see previous blog) about it. A recent audit by the Office of Inspector General which was made public at the end of last week reinforces these concerns.

According to the audit, the quality of the data received by the States is improving but only half of the commercial carriers have provided this data. Adding to that the FMCSA has not yet implemented a data correction process to make sure the information received is accurate and correct it if necessary. In regards to the implementation of CSA at State level, only 10 States have fully implemented CSA enforcement intervention process. THE FMCSA is unable to provide a deadline as to when the program will be fully implemented in the 41 other States. The audit also reveals that the FMCSA is not adhering to Information technology best practices and Federal Guidance in regards to its safety measurement system.

When a truck accident is caused by a mechanical failure, tires are often the culprit. Accidents related to tire failure commonly happen because – tires are defective,

– tires are not properly maintained by the trucking company – tires that have not been properly inspected by the driver before the trip

When it comes to maintenance and inspection, trucking company employees and drivers should be rigorous and make sure not to rely on some tire safety myths that have never been proven true such as checking the pressure by kicking the tires or believing it’s ok to re-inflate a tire that has been run more than 10 percent low.