Tag Archives: trucking accident
What is PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and why does in matter in highway crash cases?
When my father’s generation came home from World War II, many of them carried psychological scars about which they kept quiet. My parents married young, at 21 and 18, the week he returned from combat in 1945. My mother said that dad fought the air war over Europe every night in his sleep for at … Continue Reading
Tractor trailer merging from shoulder in darkness kills motorist on I-95
An approaching driver’s view of a tractor trailer pulling from breakdown lane into traffic in the dark
A tractor-trailer pulled from the highway shoulder in front of an approaching SUV on I-95 in Jasper County, SC, just north of Savannah, about 9:30 PM Wednesday night, August 8, 2018. The impact killed Raymond Jackson, Jr., driver of the … Continue Reading
Four big rig pileup kills woman on I-285 near Camp Creek Parkway exit
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, … Continue Reading
ABCO Transportation’s record of unsafe driving violations culminates in deaths of two AutoTrader.com employees, injuries to four others
ABCO Transportation, Inc., a refrigerated freight haulder based in Dade City, Florida, has had for several years an unsatisfactory record of unsafe driving violations with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. When a trucking company has a record as bad as ABCO, often there are issues of management turning a blind eye to safety, in … Continue Reading
$5,830,000 verdict in Atlanta against drunk driver who killed young mom
As a trial attorney handling catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases in Atlanta, I continue to see how jurors are able to separate the wheat from the chaff and do substantial justice in serious cases. Frivolous and trivial cases, by contrast, don’t carry much weight with jurors.
This week in the State Court of Fulton County, a … Continue Reading
Trucking companies responsible for making sure employees follow safety rules
As a trucking safety attorney in Georgia, I sometimes find trucking companies trying to disown their driver’s safety violations.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, which are designed to protect safety of members of the public, clearly require trucking companies to require their employees to obey the driver regulations.
49 C.F.R. § 390.11 requires: “Whenever . . . … Continue Reading
Causal link between violation of trucking safety rules and truck crashes
In order to use Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulation violations to support liability or punitive damages, it is essential to establish that the violation was a proximate cause of the crash.
Some judges don’t easily grasp the obvious connection between extreme driver fatigue and driver error. For example, in one Georgia case the court failed to … Continue Reading
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations set minimum national safety standards for trucking
The framers of the U. S. Constitution recognized in 1787 that no individual state could adequate deal with regulation of interstate commerce, so that was made one of the core functions of the federal government along with national defense and a few others.
The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution provides that any state law that conflicts … Continue Reading
Safersys a valuable resource in trucking litigation
Safersys.org is a web site maintained by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Through this site, one may obtain extensive basic information about motor carriers within moments after learning of the potential case. A “Carrier Snapshot” search includes the company’s legal name, address, phone number, USDOT number, numbers of power units and drivers, inspection and … Continue Reading
Rapid response essential after a trucking crash
When a significant motor carrier collision happens, the pattern response is for the truck driver to immediately call the dispatcher, who calls the risk manager even at home in the middle of the night, who in turn calls in a “rapid response team” – a defense lawyer in the state where the crash occurred in … Continue Reading
