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.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has stated that passengers in cars may be decapitated if their vehicles go under the rear of heavy-duty trailer trucks with guards -- even if the vehicles meet U.S. rules designed to prevent severe injuries.

I have handled these decapitation cases before, and they are truly horrendous.

I believe the tests show stronger rules are needed. The Institute has also recently said that trailers made to Canadian specifications were less likely to cause catastrophic injuries.

According to NHTSA data, 419 car occupants were killed in 2007 and 352 in 2008 in crashes involving passenger vehicles striking the rear of large trucks.
Almost 80 percent of crashes involving cars rear-ending trucks involved significant amounts of underride, even after NHTSA required stronger structures to be lowered to 22 inches off the ground.

NHTSA doesn't require the guards to be tested on trailers themselves, which has led to weaknesses: guards can fail if hardware attaching them to the trailer isn't strong enough to withstand impact. The tests underscore that guards installed to U.S. standards aren't holding up out in the real world.

NHTSA expects to complete its review of the regulation in 2012.

Canadian regulators require stronger crash guards. However trailers made by a corporation based in Lafayette, Indiana are engineered to exceed the Canadian requirements.

I feel very strongly that the U.S. standards for these guards are far too low and hope they are strengthened immediately.

Please 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.

CHANGES PROPOSED TO "DAILY" DUTY

The required off-duty period of 10 consecutive hours will not change.
For drivers not otherwise except, the consecutive hours will be reduced from 16 hours consecutive hours down to 14 consecutive hours, a step in the right direction to make sure that sleepy, inattentive 18-wheelers are not out there on our roadways putting others at risk.

The new proposed maximum on-duty within a driving window would reduce consecutive hours from 14-16 down to 13 consecutive hours. Again, another step in the right direction.

Maximum driving within driving window is either going to remain the same at 11 consecutive hours or be reduced down to 10 hours.

Currently there is no limit on consecutive hours of driving but the newly proposed rule will make it so 18-wheelers may drive only if it has been 7 hours or less since last off-duty period of at least 30 minutes. This definitely need to change because currently there is no rule in place to make these drivers take a break, often resulting in inattentive driving which is a result of numerous wrecks that cause serious injury.

CHANGES PROPOSED TO "WEEKLY" DUTY PERIOD
There is currently no proposed change to the maximum on-duty hours of 60 hrs. in 7 days/ 70 hrs. in 8 days.

Currently, there are no limits on "restarts" but a proposed new rule would limit these periods to include:
(1) Must include two periods between Midnight-6 a.m.;
(2) May only be used once per week.
Driver must designate the period being used as a restart.

All of these newly proposed rules are a step in the right direction and I hope the FMCSA will adopt all of these if not further reduce the amount hours truckers are out on the roads continuously. For info on a warning letters click here.

I have sued on many cases involving inattentive 18-wheelers, including one where I have just recently taken a several day deposition where I fought to protect my clients from the 18-wheelers attorney who was trying to trip them up during the grueling ordeal. In this case we had already shown to the company and their attorneys that the defendant driver had violated many of the above regulations and do this immediately on any 18-wheeler case that comes into my office.

If you want the check the safety of a 18-Wheeler Carrier or Driver click here to be directed to the FMCSA/CSA SAFER search.

Continue reading "18-Wheeler Safety Regulations, FMCSA Proposed Changes " »

A hotly disputed issue in the trucking industry could heavily affect my clients and every one driving on our Texas highways.

Mexican truck drivers entering the United States are currently limited to traveling only within a 20-mile to 25-mile radius of specific ports of entry. Then their goods are picked up by American truckers and transported throughout the U.S.

But, Mexico has claimed that this restriction violated the 1994 NAFTA trade agreement between the U.S. and Mexico.

Many who are opposed to allowing Mexican truckers to access American roadways say that trucking jobs in the United States would be lost and roadways will be made unsafe because of the differences in safety standards between the two countries.

Really?!

The United States Department of Transportation has put forward a preliminary proposal that includes a requirement that Mexican Truckers who want to access Texas roadways will be required to have electronic recording devices to allow monitoring of the drivers' hours of services and compliance with American trucking laws and drivers will also have their combined American and Mexican driving records checked to ensure that they have no history of unsafe driving that would disqualify them under American standards.

Supporters of this proposal state that allowing cross-border trucking would boost trade opportunities for the U.S. and create jobs her in Texas.

I think that the safety issues need to be addressed and proven before allowing these unsafe Mexican trucks onto our roadways. There is already an issue with American companies allowing unsafe trucks and drivers onto our roadways and to add the lower regulated Mexican trucks out there it would even more dangerous.

I am currently represent various clients who have been injured by 18 wheelers and other commercial vehicles, including some from Mexico.

If you are involved in an 18 wheeler accident please contact my office immediately so that I can fight to get you everything you deserve.

More than 1,700 trucks were taken out of commission due to safety violations during the three-day Roadcheck 2010 operation conducted by the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Over the three day operation, which ran from June 8 to June 10, DPS troopers checked 6,909 commercial vehicles statewide and 1,738 were taken out of service because safety violations were discovered that required immediate repairs, officials said.

In addition to the trucks, 160 drivers' licenses were suspended for violations, including not properly tracking hours, and driving with suspended or expired driver licenses.

In just three days officers wrote citations for the following citations to 18-wheeler and other commercial truck drivers:

900 brakes out of adjustment;
702 brake system problems;
322 light malfunctions;
283 tire or wheel issues; and
5 tickets for seat belt violations.

Trucking companies know that their trucks are in violation and pose a danger to other motorists, but to save money, they let them drive anyway. I applaud the DPS officers who participated in this operation to help keep everyone safe, and I sponsor the Truck Safety Coalition in their efforts as well.

Based on the findings in this study, more than one out of every ten commercial vehicles in Texas is driving with faulty brakes. If you have to stop suddenly while driving in front of an 18-wheeler, theres a one in ten chance his brakes will have problems and putting you or your family at risk of severe injuries or death.

If someone is towing 80,000 pounds behind me, I want to know that they will be able to stop without hitting me. Huge tractor trailers are hard to stop even with perfect brakes. When they have bad brakes they're a threat to everyone.

I represented a woman who was rear ended by a water truck after hitting her brakes to avoid rear ended a stopped car parked in her lane. I sued the trucking company and in the driver's deposition got him to admit that he was looking down to adjust his radio, and that his truck was 5,000 miles past a required inspection. The case settled for a lot of money shortly after the depositions.

An 18-wheeler accidentally became a 10-wheeler early Tuesday morning when the back wheel assembly came completely off the trailer! The trailer was resting at a 45-degree angle on the northbound lanes of I-35E near the Laureland exit. Thankfully no one was hurt in the accident, but the 18 wheeler blocked rush hour traffic for several hours.

Accidents such as this are often due to the lack of proper truck maintenance. Drivers and the owners of the trucks are supposed to inspect their rigs regularly but they often don't. The authorities have not yet released why the trailer lost 8 wheels, but I'm sure the accident could of been avoided if the owner of the truck would of practiced preventative maintenance.