August 2014

In June, a Wal-Mart truck driver who had been awake 24 hours caused a deadly pileup in New Jersey. The Wal-Mart truck driver’s Twitter profile included the phrase, “move or get hit.”

Since that crash, most of the attention has been centered on comedian Tracy Morgan because he is most well-known. However he is not the only one that was affected by the incident.

The adult children of James McNair, killed in the June crash in Cranbury that injured comedian Tracy Morgan and others, are moving forward with their suit against Wal-Mart and its truck driver. Wal-Mart owned

Several times recently, I have written about the projected inflation adjustment to minimum liability insurance coverage for interstate commercial vehicles. The process continues.

A few days ago, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration issued a 14-page Report to Congress, concluding the following:

1.    Current limits are inadequate in covering catastrophic crashes.

2.    Simply adjusting existing limits to adjust for healthcare inflation would require raising limits:

  • a.    From the current $750,000 to $3,188,250 for general tractor-trailers, rather than the $4.2 million that was discussed for inflation adjustment since the $750,000 minimum was first set in 1980.
  • b.    From the current $1

Trucking has inherent dangers, both for other motorists hit by big trucks and for truck drivers who are underpaid and underinsured for their labor in one of the most dangerous of occupations. More truckers and delivery men, die on the job than any other vocation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The current proposal to adjust trucking liability insurance requirements for three decades of inflation should be expanded to include mandatory uninsured / underinsured motorist coverage to protect truck drivers, many of whom are independent contractors who lack even the most basic workers compensation protection.

I have represented

Safety records matter, especially in the trucking industry in which 80,000 vehicles share the highway with your family and mine. If a trucking company builds a deplorable safety record there can be consequences in terms of fines, suspension, loss of operating authority, insurance rates, etc.

So what happens when a persistently unsafe trucking company encounters the natural and logical consequences of unsafe operation?

Too often in our law practice, we see cases involving newly authorized trucking companies with largely the same officers, owners, equipment and personnel as an earlier company that had a bad record. “Reincarnated” carriers, also known as