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.

Hallelulah!

The FMCSA and PHMSA are amending the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations and the Hazardous Materials Regulations to restrict the use of hand-held mobile telephones by drivers of commercial motor vehicles.

By preventing tractor-trailer drivers from using hand-held cellular phones, these new rules will obviously improve safety on the nation's highways by reducing the prevalence of distracted drivers. Distracted drivers are the number one cause of crashes, fatalities, and injuries caused by drivers of commercial vehicles.

The agencies are also implement new driver disqualification sanctions for drivers of vehicles who do not to comply with this restriction and new driver sanctions for holders of commerical driver's licenses who have multiple convictions for violating a State or local laws that restricts the use of hand-held mobile telephones while driving.

Motor carriers are now also prohibited from requiring or allowing drivers of CMVs to use hand-held mobile telephones.

I applaud these agencies for their commitment to protecting the welfare of innocent drivers everywhere. I have represented too many people who have been injured as a result of truck drivers either talking on cell phones or texting while driving -- while hurling down our roads in big rigs.

When I file suit in these 18 wheeler cases, I subpoena the driver's call logs from the cell phone carrier to prove that he was talking instead of caring about what he was doing.

I recently concluded a case where I was able to prove that the trucker had been calling on his cell phone immediately before he crashed into the rear of my client's pick up truck, seriously hurting him and his wife.

If you've been hurt in a wreck, call my office at 817-885-8000 or fill out this form for a free evaluation. The sooner I start working on your case, the sooner I can start collecting time-sensitive information to help you get the maximum amount of money possible.

At least one person was unfortunately killed and a section of U.S. 287 in Wise County was shut down before dawn Tuesday after two 18-wheelers collided.

Both 18-wheekers were traveling in the southbound lane of the highway south of Decatur when the crash happened at about 5:10 a.m. shutting down the southbound lane of traffic. Details about the injured parties are not yet available.

If you have been involved in an accident with an 18-wheeler, you should immediately discuss your situation with a board certified attorney. The destruction caused by an 18-wheeler is vastly greater than what is typical of a passenger car accident. Because of this, 18-wheeler insurance policies are much higher than individual ones, and I have seen multiple policies adding up to $50 million. Insurance companies know that there is a lot of money at stake will do everything in their power to minimize their losses.

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

A man in a pickup unfortunately died in a wreck with a tractor-trailer six miles west of Burleson Sunday night.

He was traveling east on County Road 920 in his 1997 Chevrolet pickup at 8:00 p.m. when he collided with a 1995 Peterbilt tractor-trailer that was unsafely turning west onto County Road 920 from County Road 1015.

If you have been involved in an accident with an 18-wheeler, you should immediately discuss your situation with a board certified attorney. The destruction caused by an 18-wheeler is vastly greater than what is typical of a passenger car accident. Because of this, 18-wheeler insurance policies are much higher than individual ones, and I have seen multiple policies adding up to $50 million. Insurance companies know that there is a lot of money at stake will do everything in their power to minimize their losses.

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

There is a new push to allow bigger trucks on the roads and highways of America. Trucking companies are talking about longer trucks and trucks with double and triple trailers. Even with the current weight limit, crashes involving commercial trucks cause too many serious injuries and deaths every year.

The Wall Street Journal indicated the push in Congress is coming from 150 companies who want to allow trucks up to 20% heavier than the current 80,000 pound limit. This would make the average truck go from 80,000 pounds to 96,000 pounds. These longer and heavier trucks would increase the blind spots of truck drivers around the tractor trailer as well as making them harder to stop quickly. Unless they are able to substantially increase the power of the brakes, the additional momentum will mean longer stopping distances and more accidents.

And even if trucks have increased breaking capacity, passenger cars and pickup trucks wont have any additional strength added to withstand the impact from these super trucks. Even if newer cars can be built to withstand the additional impact force, hundreds of millions of older cars would remain unprotected.

In addition to consumer safety organizations that uniformly think this is a bad idea, OIDA (Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association) has stated that the stability of a tractor trailer is "substantially reduced on bigger and heavier trucks." Rollovers are already the leading cause of truck driver deaths. Allowing heavier trucks would only make one of the most deadly professions more dangerous. One government official, a truck inspector, called the idea is "insane" according to the Wall Street Journal article.

I have represented hundreds of innocent people who have been seriously injured in wrecks with tractor-trailers. Many of them are lucky to be alive. The picture below is the car two of my clients were in after it was run over by an 18-wheeler. Fortunately, they both survived. If the truck that hit them had been 16,000 pounds heavier, they would surely have been killed. If you have been involved in an accident with an 18-wheeler or other commercial truck, call my office at 817-885-8000 immediately to discuss your case. I will take the time to meet with you and answer all your questions. The sooner you call, the sooner I can start working on your case and making you money.

I am deeply saddened and angered by the news that three more innocent people have been lost because of the negligent driving of an 18-wheeler driver.

Three people in a Toyota 4Runner SUV were killed when their vehicle burst into flames after being rear-ended by an 18-wheeler in Kaufman County. Two of the people killed in the horrific event were on their way to a family reunion for the memorial day weekend.
The driver of the 18-wheeler could of stopped if he was paying attention and could have prevented this tragedy.

I recently took a case in which my client was negligently side swiped by an 18-wheeler. My clients truck got wedged between the trailer and the cab of the big rig and my client was drug for more than 900 feet before the truck driver finally stopped! The 18-wheeler driver then tried to flee the scene, thankfully he was caught. My client sustained serious back injuries, lost his job, and had to have several surgeries as a result of the wreck.

18-wheelers are dangerous vehicles if driven negligently. I support the Truck Safety Coalition, an organization that lobby's for new laws that will make the roads safer by cracking down on negligent truck drivers. The Coalition sponsors laws that outlaw truckers from texting and driving.

Hopefully this tragic accident accident will serve as reminder to truck drivers everywhere that they need to pay attention and stay alert when they drive.

An early morning 18-wheeler accident has left one women dead and and her husband seriously injured. An 18-wheeler slammed into the vehicle on LBJ Freeway while the couple had pulled over on the shoulder to fix a flat tire. The driver of the big rig claimed he didn't see the car in time to stop from plowing into the back of it.

If you have been involved in an accident with an 18-wheeler, my advice is to discuss your situation with a board certified attorney. The destruction caused by an 18-wheeler is vastly greater than what is typical of a passenger car accident. Because of this, 18-wheeler insurance policies are generally valued at 50 times those of you or me.

The insurance company knows that there is a lot of money at stake here, and they will do everything in their power to minimize their losses.

Give me a call if you have been involved in an 18-wheeler wreck and I will deal with the insurance companies so you don't have to.

On June 11, 2002 10-year-old Aaron Joubert and his family were involved in a terrible 18-wheeler crash on Interstate 20 near Mesquite. The family was coming home from a reunion when their car struck a parked 18-wheeler on the side of the highway. Aaron Joubert and his father were the only survivors. Arron's mother and his five siblings were tragically killed in the accident. Aaron lost 90 percent of his liver as a result of the wreck and defied all the odds when he was able to survive. Now, almost eight years after the accident, Aaron is getting ready to graduate High School. It is great to see a young man, who has dealt with such hardship, overcome adversity and excel in life.

Although the 18-wheeler in Aaron's case was legally stopped on the highway, there are many accidents caused by negligent truck drivers who have illegally parked on the side of the road. In 2005 I was able to get a $2,225,000.00 settlement for the Jordan family when their father tragically crashed into a garbage truck that had run out of gas on I-30. The garbage truck was negligently parked on the highway and I was able to obtain a large settlement to help compensate the Jordan family for their great loss.

Truck accidents happen all to often. If you have been injured in a truck accident, call me and we can discuss your legal options. I have 30 years of experience dealing with truck accidents and will help you get all the money you deserve.