Georgia Personal Injury Law Blog : Atlanta Georgia Injury Lawyer & Attorney : Jason R. Schultz Law Firm : Wrongful Death, Malpractice, Car Accidents : Georgia

The year 2010 has seen a number of new measures aimed at trucking safety. First, there was the ban on texting while driving for all commercial truck drivers.  While no Atlanta truck accident lawyers doubt that a measure like this will keep motorists safer from distracted truckers, it's also true that the truck drivers will benefit from having their attention focused 100% on the highway ahead of them.

News on truckers seat belt usage is encouraging - the numbers of truckers buckling up is higher than in 2007. According to figures released by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, 74% of all truck drivers now wear seatbelts while driving. Those figures are up from 65% in 2007.

Some interesting facts came out in the FMCSA survey.

·         Truck drivers in states that have primary enforcement seat belt laws were more likely to buckle up, as compared to those in states that have secondary enforcement. In primary enforcement states, the compliance rate was 76%, while in other states it was just 67%.

·         Drivers working for national fleets had a better rate of compliance with seatbelt laws, as compared to drivers working as independent operators.

·         Western states have the highest seatbelt compliance rates with an average of 79% of truckers wearing seat belts.

·         The worst compliance rates were seen in the northeastern states, with just 64% of drivers buckling up.

·         Southern states had a respectable compliance rate of 75%, which is better than the national average, while the Midwest had a compliance rate of 68%.

Most truck safety efforts focus on the safety of those sharing the road with trucks, for good reason. In approximately 80% of truck accidents, it’s the occupants of the smaller vehicle that have the highest risk of injuries and death. However, every year, hundreds of truck drivers are seriously injured or killed in accidents as well. Wearing a seatbelt is certainly one way a truck driver can increase his or her chances of survival in a truck wreck.

Political gridlock in the nation’s capital has led to thousands of Department of Transportation employees being furloughed without pay, and has cut off essential funding to state highway and auto safety programs. As an accident lawyer in Atlanta, I am very concerned at how long this impasse will continue, and how badly it will affect motorist and trucking safety in Georgia.

On Sunday, the DOT issued a statement saying that it would be furloughing up to 2000 workers belonging to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. The stalemate also affects highway funds that the federal administration provides to states to conduct safety programs.

The deadlock began when Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning blocked a piece of legislation that would've extended highway programs and unemployment benefits to transportation workers. It is likely that this deadlock will soon be resolved, but states around the country are already sending out distress signals about their fears over slashed highway safety funds. According to the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, if the funding cuts go on past the middle of this week, it will impact trucking safety. The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance is comprised of police officers who are specialized in trucking enforcement. This sub agency is funded in part by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. With funding now hanging in a state of limbo, several states will be impacted adversely. Smaller states will bear the brunt of the blocked federal funding.

Atlanta accident lawyers will also be concerned about motorcycle safety programs, drunk driving crash prevention measures and efforts against distracted driving, which will now be impacted by the funding standoff.

It's unfortunate that political bickering is threatening the safety of ordinary Americans.  It is my hope that this crisis is resolved soon and funding for essential safety programs is resumed quickly.

Truck safety groups and accident lawyers around Georgia will welcome the launch of a new website that will allow trucking companies to screen drivers before they are hired.

Last fall, Transportation Sec. Ray LaHood announced that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration would launch a website that would provide access to driver safety records. The website was launched this week. Employers can now access up to five years of a potential employee’s accident history, and up to three years of his inspection history. The program uses data from the Motor Carrier Management Information System. Employers who use the system will access the same information that’s available to police officers and FMCSA staff. The data is not yet available on the website, but should be online in the next couple of months.

The website marks a step forward in trucking safety. One of a trucking company’s responsibilities in preventing truck accidents is the hiring of competent, trained and experienced drivers with a good driving record. This website will make it easy for trucking companies to screen employees before making the decision to hire.

An easily accessible system like this has been necessary for quite a while now. As an Newnan truck accident attorney, I have been calling for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to get more involved and proactive in bolstering driver screening programs. The information on the website will be available not just to trucking companies, but also to the truck drivers themselves, who will be free to use the report as part of their job application. This makes the entire process of hiring truckers much more transparent.

A series of bus accidents in recent months in Georgia and around the country have focused attention on our antiquated bus safety laws, including the failure to mandate seatbelts on buses, and have better scrutiny of motor coach companies.

As an Atlanta bus accident lawyer, I have been particularly troubled by the fact that NTSB recommendations to the FMCSA to mandate seatbelts on buses have been ignored for several years. That’s why it is very encouraging to read about the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and its Motor Coach Safety Action Plan that aims to prevent accidents and minimize injuries.   The plan includes measures that will

• Require on-board recorders that will prevent motor coach drivers from operating their vehicles for longer than stipulated by federal laws. This will minimize the number of bus crashes that are caused by driver fatigue, like the one involving a casino bus in California that killed 11 people last year.
• Ban drivers from text messaging while at the wheel, and place restrictions on the use of cell phones while driving. Studies have shown that the risk of accidents increases by 23 percent when a driver is texting at the wheel.
• Make it harder for shady bus operators to be able to quickly rename companies and continue operations, when they are forced to shut down after violations have been found. Such unscrupulous companies find it easy to cover their tracks after an accident, making it hard for investigators to find out who owns the bus.
• Require seatbelts on buses.
• Develop stronger roof crush and collapse standards to prevent the kind of serious injuries that often occur when the roof of the bus disintegrates in a collision.

The Department of Transportation has already indicated its intention of adopting these measures. Seatbelt use may have prevented the kind of serious injuries and fatalities that occurred in the Bluffton University bus accident in Atlanta in 2007, which killed 7 occupants. The NTSB recommended seatbelts, and their use, on buses several decades ago, but the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has failed to act on these recommendations.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (“FMCSA”) has agreed to rewrite hours of service regulations for truck drivers, bowing to pressure from safety groups and labor unions who insisted that the current rule increased the risk of accidents.

The current rule allows long haul truckers to drive for 11 consecutive hours at a stretch, extended from the previous ten.  That move had been opposed by victims’ families, truck safety groups and the Teamsters union, who challenged the rule, claiming that these extended hours increased the risk of accidents. The FMCSA has now agreed to rewrite the rules.  The agency has assured these groups that it will come up with new rules governing hours of service within the next 9 months.

The move to rewrite the rules comes even as a new chief takes office at the FMCSA.  Anne Ferro, a former Maryland trucking industry lobbyist has been confirmed as administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Ferro’s nomination for the post of FMCSA chief had not been without controversy, mostly because of her past as a lobbyist for the trucking industry.  For 6 years, Ferro served as president of the Maryland Motor Truck Association, a fact that aggravated her opponents, even though her lobbying was restricted to the state and didn’t extend to federal officials.

As an Atlanta trucking accident lawyer, I have been especially concerned about Ferro’s strong support for the 11-hour trucking rule, in light of the mounting evidence that it placed truckers and motorists at greater risk. It doesn’t take a “rocket scientist” to appreciate that truck drivers are under constant pressure to meet tight delivery schedules, and the fewer hours they are forced to drive, the safer we all will be.

At least 13 marching band members from Morehouse College were injured over the weekend in a bus accident in Henry County.  The bus was carrying the students to a football game at Albany State University on Saturday morning, when it overturned into a ditch.

According to news reports, the charter bus was carrying 42 passengers when it apparently skidded off I-75 and flipped over. 13 band members were injured seriously enough to require treatment in a hospital, but their injuries are not reported to be life threatening.  The highway was apparently wet from recent rain, and the weather is being cited as a possible contributing factor in the accident.  Investigations will likely first try to determine what the speed of the bus was at the time.

Adverse weather can impact a bus driver’s ability to maintain control of the bus. Commercial bus drivers are bound by Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration regulations which mandate that drivers drive with “extreme caution” in adverse weather conditions and adjust their speed accordingly.

The unfortunate crash also coincides with the National Transportation Safety Board’s recommendation to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration that commercial bus drivers be screened for sleep apnea. It also comes at the end of a week in which the NTSB released its investigation report into the deadly bus accident in Sherman, Texas last year. The agencies report especially criticized federal and state agencies for ignoring several of its bus safety recommendations over the years, especially those relating to seat belts in buses.

Jason Schultz is an Atlanta personal injury lawyer representing victims in injury litigation.

A series of accidents and near-misses involving nearly all modes of transportation and drivers suffering from sleep apnea, has spurred the National Transportation Safety Board into action. The agency has recommended that commercial truck and bus drivers be screened for sleep apnea. The NTSB has recommended to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMSCA) that medical examiners probe truck and bus drivers about sleep apnea, and make more efforts to identify the disorder in these drivers.

Earlier this year, the NTSB made similar recommendations to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and local transit agencies around the country. Those recommendations called for screening of airline pilots and train operators for sleep apnea. The move comes after a series of accidents involving sleep apnea and commercial vehicles, including trucks, buses and even cruise ships.

Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder that is far more common than you think. Persons suffering from this condition experience interruptions in breathing during sleep. These interruptions can last for just a few seconds, and there may be multiple episodes in a night. The disturbed sleep leads tiredness or drowsiness the next day.

Sleep apnea is often hard to diagnose. There may be no other symptoms except for drowsiness and fatigue, and doctors may misdiagnose this as chronic fatigue syndrome, if diagnosed at all. Anyone can suffer sleep apnea, but occurs more frequently in those who are “overweight”.

It’s important to stress here that commercial truck drivers may actually be at a higher risk of sleep apnea simply due to their lifestyle. A trucker may work long hours, eat an unhealthy diet, and enjoy little exercise, all contributing to obesity and placing him at a higher risk for sleep apnea. Without screening, drivers may not receive treatment for the condition, placing them and the motoring public at risk for a serious truck accident.

Jason Schultz is an Atlanta trucking accident attorney, helping injured victims of tractor trailer and semi truck accidents recover compensation for their injuries.