Waiving Hours of Service Rules for Hurricane Ian Relief Doesn’t Mean Those Rules Shouldn’t Exist
During the initial phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) relaxed hours of service rules to ensure an uninterrupted supply of goods during the crisis. This led some in the trucking industry to suggest that the waiver meant that rules weren't necessary in the first place. Their thinking went, "If...
What Evidence Do Police Miss When Investigating Commercial Vehicle Crashes?
I've spent a good portion of my decades-long career pushing back against the myth that a police crash report is the final word on any collision. The most obvious reason not to place too much faith in police reports is that they don't conclusively establish fault for a crash. In other words, everyone is free...
A Look Back at How Spectacularly Wrong a 1982 Truck Accident Study Predicted the Future
New data bombards us, regardless of what we do. Given what I do for a living, I see a constant stream of truck accident data and studies. While I read, digest, and comment on this data, federal regulators make new laws based on the same studies, and responsible trucking companies use them to devise new...
Why Is a Trucking Magazine Bragging About Poor Out-of-Service Rates?
Perhaps there isn't a stranger sight than someone bragging about mediocrity. That's what an author in Land Line Magazine did recently when discussing the results of International Roadcheck 2021. For those unfamiliar with International Roadcheck, it's a coordinated enforcement effort between officials in the United States, Mexico, and Canada to ensure that the commercial trucks...
Can We Retire the Myth of the Truck Driver Shortage?
Have you heard that a shortage of truck drivers exists and it's only getting worse? According to the American Trucking Association (ATA), the American trucking industry finds itself in need of 61,000 drivers. To make matters worse, within 7 years, that number could balloon into hundreds of thousands of truck drivers short of what the...
TXDOT Report Shows the Fallibility of Experts
I'm not in the business of making mountains out of molehills. However, there are times when I read something that exemplifies many larger trends, and this is one of them. Not a day goes by when someone (usually in a position of authority) laments that people don't trust experts (people like them) like they used...
What Are the 5 Deadliest States for Truck Drivers?
While many people worry about the dangers that tractor-trailers pose to them on the highway, few consider that they aren't the only ones at risk in accidents with large vehicles. In fact, nearly 700 truckers die every year on our nation's highways. This makes driving commercial trucks one of the more dangerous occupations in the...
Semi-Autonomous Truck Convoys Appear Unnecessarily Dangerous at First Glance
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) made headlines at its recent Analysis, Research, and Technology Forum. The trucking industry regulator rattled many in the trucking industry with its aggressive forecast for driverless commercial vehicles deployment. Most of the hoopla surrounded FMCSA's projection that fully autonomous trucks will hit the road sometime around 2030. Even...
Why Do West Texas Oilfield Companies Keep Hiring Dangerous Truck Drivers?
"How do we bring the number of Texas oilfield trucking fatalities down?" Media outlets raise issues such as speed limits, road maintenance, and truck upkeep, which all play a role in the problem: What no one wants to discuss is that the biggest factor in whether an 18-wheeler causes a deadly crash is the quality of the truck's driver.
What Is Missing from the Discussion of Deadly West Texas Oil-Field Truck Crashes?
Out of the half-dozen outlets that filed reports on this incident, not a single one mentions that the pick-up that likely caused the crash is owned by an oil services company. While authorities are aware that Imperative Chemical Partners Inc. owns and operates the offending pick-up, and will likely classify this crash as an oil-field truck accident, it's certainly concerning that skilled reporters missed this crucial detail.
Grossman Law Offices Accepts Semi-Truck Accident Referrals Throughout Texas
It's no secret that any personal injury attorney in Texas is more than happy to take on a commercial truck accident case. To be perfectly blunt, the reason is simple: commercial trucks have more insurance than most passenger cars. The problem that many attorneys run into is that they quickly discover that 18-wheeler wrongful death...
Did a Trucking Company Admit that Drivers Cheat Hours of Service Rules?
When a commercial truck accident injury and wrongful death law firm makes claims about reckless behavior and rule breaking in the trucking industry, people rightly take such claims with a shaker full of salt. But would it change anyone's mind if the admission of outrageous behavior came from an advertisement put out by a trucking...
Client Stories: The 20-Ton Boulder Parked On The Shoulder
The case we'll discuss today involves a semi-truck parked on the shoulder of a highway, when a woman driving by ended up colliding with it and suffering severe injuries.
Thoreau, NM Bus Crash Reporters: I’ll Do Your Job For You
Upton Sinclair is eye-rolling over in his grave today. The man who toiled for almost 2 months in a meatpacking plant to uncover the horrific working conditions of American laborers, can only watch from beyond the grave as his journalistic descendants, who, to a person, hold him up as an ideal, can't even be bothered...
The Bigger They Are, The Slower They Stop: The Importance of Following and Braking Distance
It no secret that as more people more to Texas, our roads become increasingly crowded. One of the first casualties of crowded roadways is proper following distance between vehicles. An incident in Southeast Texas made me ponder this dangerous element of modern driving culture. Copperas Cove, TX: January 17, 2018 65-year-old Roseann Lucidi of Kempner...
Is There Any Way a Truck Driver Isn’t Responsible for a Detached Trailer?
One of the most dangerous categories of truck accidents is when the trailer becomes detached from the truck. When this happens, it instantly places the equivalent of a multi-ton boulder in the path of every other vehicle on the road. Even drivers in the largest trucks on our highways have little chance of escaping serious...
Some Dangerous Drivers are Following Unsafe Orders.
There are times when we should weigh the morality of a decision against its profitability. Occasionally in the name of progress people in charge make decisions that, while not necessarily illegal, are certainly questionable. This kind of "me first" thinking is often most obvious when looking at certain businesses' expectations of their workers. Trucking companies...
No One Is Above Traffic Laws, So Learn and Abide By Them.
I work in an industry that continually sees the worst consequences of reckless driving, and for all my exposure to these cases, I am still utterly confused as to how they occur. Surely few people truly believe they're justified in running red lights or whipping in and out of traffic lanes, but it happens every...
Who’s Going to Investigate A Semi Truck Crash? Maybe Not Who You Think.
When an accident happens, who's the proper authority to investigate? Check the comments sections of news articles about the wreck and you'll find no shortage of armchair authorities who think they know exactly "who you gonna call." Their ideas on that are often wrong, but they'll treat them as the gospel truth when discussing the...
Do I Sue the Trucking Company or the Truck Driver?
Recently, I read about a truck accident that took place up in Hartley County, Texas. An 18-wheeler, driven by Keldrick Chappell of Dallas, 40, allegedly sideswiped a passenger car driven by Stanley Smith, 78. Mr. Smith reportedly died from injuries sustained in the accident. As much as the accident report, it caught my eye when...
