Trucking Technology

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Ken Shigley of Shigley Law LLC, based in Atlanta, Georgia, recently earned his third national board certification, in Truck Accident Law, from the National Board of Trial Advocacy. Certification is based upon exhaustive testing, documentation of extensive experience in the field of trucking accident litigation, writing samples, and professional recommendations from lawyers and attorneys familiar with the applicant’s work.

The National Board of Trial Advocacy operates under authority of the American Bar Association.   “There is no dispute about the bona fides and the relevance of NBTA certification…. Disclosure of information . . .  both serves the public interest…

When a family member is killed or seriously injured in a crash with a tractor trailer, a normal human instinct is to wait a decent interval before consulting an attorney. Then one may be inclined to take one’s time talking with a hometown lawyer who handles an occasional car wreck case along with divorces, criminal cases and real estate closings.  Meanwhile, trucking companies and their insurance companies are busy burying incriminating evidence.

A recent case in our office illustrates the importance of striking hard and fast to preserve evidence. While a truck crash victim was in ICU at the…

You are a great lawyer in your area of practice. You are also smart enough to know when a big case may require prompt action outside your comfort zone.

Just as a trial lawyer may not feel comfortable handling a complex real estate, divorce or estate planning matter, a great lawyer in those fields may not want to risk a client’s rights by trying to figure out how to handle a catastrophic truck crash case.

When you get a call from a friend or client that a family member has been killed or seriously injured in a crash with a…

A chain reaction crash involving four big rig tractor trailers on I-285 near Camp Creek Parkway in south Fulton County, GA, killed a woman in a passenger car on June 19, 2018.

According to the Georgia State Patrol, A tractor-trailer was traveling northbound when it struck three other big rigs and the rear of a car, pushing the car underneath another tractor-trailer.

News photos showed that at least one truck’s cab was badly crushed and the roof of the passenger car was caved in.

In addition to the one fatality, five others were taken to Grady Memorial Hospital. It…

A fiery crash on I-95 at Richmond Hill near Savannah in Chatham County on July 26th caused the wrongful death of a woman and sent her husband to a specialized burn unit in Augusta. It appears all too typical of other truck accident cases we have handled throughout Georgia, including those in the Savannah area and along I-95 and I-16.

According to news reports, as a southbound tractor trailer approached the exit the driver moved from the center lane to the right lane. Approaching a line of cars slowed in traffic, the truck driver then tried to get…

truck2“TMI” for “too much information” is a common, joking expression for overdisclosure of personal details in conversation or social media.

Now it appears that trucking companies with bad safety records yelled “TMI!” loudly enough, and spent enough money on “K” Street lobbyists and campaign contributions to impede public access to their safety records.

Five years ago, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) launched a new trucking safety initiative called the Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) program.  At the heart of this program was a Safety Measurement System (SMS) designed to analyze violations from inspections and crash data. The idea was…

video iphoneWhen I started practicing law in 1977, hardly anyone but TV stations had video cameras, which at the time were heavy, tripod-mounted and extremely expensive. The idea of being able to play a video recording of an event in court would have seemed like science fiction if anyone had been so fanciful as to suggest  it.

But today investigation of any serious injury or wrongful death case involves a hunt for video recordings from a variety of sources. We hardly could not have imagined this in my early days as a prosecutor.

In 1983, the first consumer camcorders began to…

In the past 10 days this plaintiffs’ trial lawyer, in the capacity of State Bar of Georgia president, has co-presided over a joint meeting of the State Bar Executive Committee and the Georgia Supreme Court, had a joint press conference with the Attorney General of Georgia and spoke at a lunch meeting that included general counsels of some of Georgia’s leading corporations. In 75 days, I will complete my term as State Bar president and get back to practicing law full-time.

I do not expect any favoritism from anyone as cases must be decided on their merits.  But if a…

As president of the State Bar of Georgia, I have occasion to work on a number of issues and controversies beyond the scope of my own personal injury, wrongful death and commercial trucking accident trial practice.  The following is excerpted from an article by Kathleen Joyner in the Fulton County Daily Report on September 23, 2011.

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Bar committee OKs rule change
Public defenders in same circuit would be allowed to represent co-defendants under proposed amendment

The State Bar of Georgia’s Disciplinary Rules and Procedures Committee on Wednesday unanimously approved a rule change that would allow public defenders in the…

In truck crash litigation in Georgia, we see how smaller trucking companies often have the least focus on safety rules enforcement. For example, I am  now preparing for trial in a case where a small trucking company was repeatedly fined for scores of  violations of the same safety rules over a three year period before their driver crashed into a lady driving to work on an Atlanta expressway. They had violated some of the same rules with regard to that driver.

Last yearr, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration began a new safety system called Compliance, Safety, Accountability 2010 (CSA 2010). To reduce truck crash fatalities, the program is intended to identify dangerous truck drivers, companies with records of negligence and tractor-trailers and other trucks that have unsafe records.

The National Association of Small Trucking Companies sued to block public release of truck safety data online in CSA 2010, claiming that the data is not an accurate reflection of their safety performance and would put them at a competitive disadvantage. The small trucking companies also claimed that federal regulators had failed to follow proper procedures and never put a proper notice in the Federal Register, denying the companies a chance to comment. They also alleged that the agency failed to issue a proper final rule.

Last week, however, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected those objections, so that all the detailed trucking safety data may be released online to the public.

In 2006, there were more than 385,000 tractor trailer accidents throughout the United States. They accounted for about 4% of all vehicles involved in a traffic injury and were linked to 8% of all fatal accidents, resulting in at least 4,732 deaths. Federal safety regulators say those numbers, while declining are out of proportion with the number of trucks on the road.