Texas Truck Accident Lawyer Blog

The U.S. Transportation Department has just revised the hours-of-service requirements to cut down on fatigued 18 wheeler truck drivers.

The new rule reduces by 12 hours the maximum number of hours a truck driver can work within a week. Under the old rule, truck drivers could work on average up to 82 hours within a seven-day period.

In addition, truck drivers cannot drive after working eight hours without first taking a break of at least 30 minutes. .

The regulation retains the current 11-hour daily driving limit.

Truck drivers who maximize their weekly work hours must now take at least two nights' rest when their 24-hour body clock demands sleep the most - from 1:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m.

Companies and drivers that commit egregious violations of the rule could face the maximum penalties for each offense. Trucking companies that allow drivers to exceed the 11-hour driving limit by 3 or more hours could be fined $11,000 per offense, and the drivers themselves could face civil penalties of up to $2,750 for each offense.

Commercial truck drivers and companies must comply with the rule by July 1, 2013.

Here's the math:

(11 hours) Monday 12a-11a

(11 hours) Monday to Tuesday 9p-8a

(11 hours) Tuesday to Wednesday 6p-5a

(11 hours) Wednesday to Thursday 3p-2a

(34 hour reset) Thursday 2a to Friday 12p

(11 hours) Friday 12p to 11p

(11 hours) Saturday 9a to 10p

(11 hours) Sunday 8a to 9p

(11 hours) Monday 7a to 6p

Here is an excellent column in today's Dallas Morning News that I wanted to share. Congratulations to my friend, Dallas lawyer Todd Clement, for his hard work fighting to stop truckers from driving while using cell phones and texting.

I just settled a large case where an 18 wheeler crashed into my client's vehicle which was at a complete stop on an interstate, because the trucker was on his cell phone and not paying attention to the road conditions ahead of him. This is a picture of her SUV.

by Steve Blow

It was more like an explosion than a collision. The work truck's cruise control was set at 71 miles an hour and the driver never touched the brake.

A car ahead of him was stopped in the highway, waiting to make a left turn. A 30-year-old woman and her 82-year-old grandmother were killed in an instant.

"The driver said, 'I never saw them.' And though he would dispute it later, in the aftermath of the accident, he told an EMS driver that he was texting prior to the wreck," said Dallas lawyer Todd Clement.

Clement represented the family of the women killed last year outside Sherman. He won a confidential settlement for them from the other driver's company. And Clement has been on a national campaign ever since to ban cellphone use in moving vehicles.

"This case affected me more than any other in my life," the 49-year-old lawyer said. "A 3-year-old and a 9-year-old lost their mom. A husband lost his wife of 62 years and had to go into a nursing home immediately after the accident."

On Tuesday, the National Transportation Safety Board unanimously recommended that states outlaw cellphone use while driving. And Clement supports that move. But he travels the country urging a step that would have a huge and much more immediate impact.

"Businesses have to ban this activity. That's the only way they can protect themselves," he said.

That goes against the tide, of course. More and more of us use our vehicles as mobile offices. The driver who hit Clement's clients worked for Cable ONE, a major provider of cable, phone and Internet service. He drove a pickup owned by the company.

But whether involving a company vehicle or not, the law is clear that a business is liable when an employee on the job causes an accident, Clement said. And cellphone use not only makes a crash far more likely, it also increases the likelihood of being found at fault, he said.

And this is an area where juries seem especially eager to issue "send-a-message verdicts," he said -- turning their displeasure over cellphones into huge monetary awards.

A 2009 Virginia Tech study concluded that cellphone users are at least six times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash.

A Texas Transportation Institute study released in October found that texting drivers were 11 times more likely to miss visual cues.

A fuel tanker crashed and burned on Interstate 30 early Friday morning, closing both sides of the freeway west of downtown Dallas. Traffic backed up for miles during the morning rush hour. Westbound lanes finally reopened between Hampton Road and Sylvan Avenue and by 9:30 all but one eastbound lane had reopened.

The crash happened when an eastbound white sedan changing lanes struck a second semi, causing it to veer into the tanker. The tanker then crashed into the concrete wall dividing the main lanes from the HOV lane.

Three people were taken to Methodist Dallas Medical Center: the 35-year-old man driving the truck and two women in the car. None of their injuries were thought to be life-threatening.

Please call me call if you have been involved in an 18-wheeler wreck I fight these trucking companies to get you the financial recovery that you deserve.

Last Friday in Houston, a tanker truck carrying almost 9000 gallons of fuel exploded as it headed west on a service road of the North Sam Houston Tollway. As the tanker truck was driving, a car ran a red light and forced the truck to swerve. When the tanker veered it crashed into a passenger van. The impact of the truck accident caused the semi tanker to rollover on its side and burst into flames. Fuel poured from the tanker, feeding the fire and spilling into the drains of the sewer system.

The fire burned so hot that It took firemen almost an hour to put the blaze out. The driver of the car that ran the red light and caused the collision was treated and stabilized at the scene before being transported to a Houston Hospital. The driver of the tanker truck was thankfully unharmed.

If you have been involved in an 18-wheeler accident, it's imperative that you hire an attorney with experience handling truck accidents. I've been handling truck accident cases for over 30 years and work hard to get my clients all the money they deserve.

I was able to obtain a $1,500,000.00 aggregate gross settlement for the family of Robert Walters, a wonderful young commercial tow truck driver who was tragically killed in 2005 as he was underneath a stalled 18 wheeler on 135 north of Denton.

Contact me at 817-885-8000 if you have been involved in a truck accident and I will explain the different ways you can be compensated for your injuries.