The Cochran Firm Legal Blog

According to American Association of Justice, there are more than nine million trucks that crisscross the country every year. While they only consist of about four percent of the passenger vehicles on the road, they are involved in 12 percent of motor vehicle fatalities annually. It is estimated that nearly 80,000 people are injured and 4,000 die as a result of truck accidents. Fatalities per mile are 56 percent higher for trucks than for all vehicles combined. All this, says the AAJ, is due to serious violations of federal safety standards. These violations include:

• Overloading trucks
• Failure to maintain tires and brakes
• Unqualified or untrained drivers
• Drivers with drug or alcohol issues
• Trucking company salary systems that encourage speeding and driving past maximum driving hours allowed

The AAJ examined a US trucking industry report from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and found there are a staggering 28,000 trucking companies representing 20,000 trucks in the US that operate with safety violations. The states with the worst offenders are Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, West Virginia, and Vermont.

Preventable Accidents

It is no secret that trucking companies cut corners for profit. However, these cost cutting and profit maximizing measures are getting people killed. By overloading trucks with goods, stress is put on tires. These tires may already be bald due to refusal to pay for new ones. The illegal weight and bad tires can, and does, lead to blowouts. It was found that in Florida, trucking companies routinely overload trucks to cut down on freight costs.

In many cases the drivers are extremely unqualified to drive the truck. In one instance, four people including a young woman pregnant with twins were killed when a truck crossed the line and hit them head on. The driver obtained his commercial drivers license with fake social security numbers. He was an illegal immigrant and had a history of truck safety violations and arrests. He admitted all this to his employer after the accident, but was still allowed to drive for another 18 months.

Recommendations

This past June, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance conducted roadside inspections of trucks across the country. The CVSA announced the inspections would be done four months in advance giving the trucking industry - and the public - ample time to fix any problems. Still, over 22 percent of the trucks failed their inspection. The trucking industry, when told that more than one out of five trucks is a danger on the road, considered this a success. They believe this "illustrate the trucking industry's deep commitment to the safety of all motorists."

It was found that most of the small trucking companies carry the bare minimum of insurance needed. This minimum amount, $750,000, has not changed since Congress imposed it in 1980. Adjusted for inflation, this amount would be two million dollars today. When a catastrophic truck accident occurs, victims must often turn to Medicare or Medicaid to cover the costs of their injuries.

Common sense safety improvements requested by the NTSB include:

• Ensuring drivers are qualified and medically able to drive
• Preventing trucks with mechanical problems to be put on the road
• Focus on FMCSA developed smart technology such as brake monitoring systems and collision mitigation systems

If you or your loved one has been injured in a truck accident, please contact the experienced truck accident attorneys at the Cochran Firm for an initial consultation. We serve clients nationwide.

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