Philadelphia, PA, 6/27/06.
On I-95 near the Philadelphia airport, a trash hauler truck crossed the median at 7 AM, crashed into other cars, and set off a chain reaction of other accidents. The truck driver was killed, as were a mother and child in a vehicle he struck. The trash truck was registered to Mike Spano & Sons, Inc, a trash and garbage hauler with five drivers.

This incident reminds me of a case we handled a couple of years ago which, blessedly, had less tragics consequences. The trucking company specialized in hauling solid waste from collection sites to landfills. The driver of an 18-wheeler garbage truck had left the company for several months because he couldn’t stand the stench. Unable to find another job that paid as well, he was working for the first time in months on the midnight to noon shift. During morning rush hour on I-75, he missed his exit, ran over a woman slowing for normal rush hour traffic, crashed into another tractor trailer, then careened into a couple of other cars.

There is something to all that sleep medicine research about circadian rhythms.


The Shigley Law Firm  represents plaintiffs in wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases statewide in Georgia, and in other states subject to the multijurisdictional practice and pro hac vice rules in each state. Ken Shigley was designated as a "SuperLawyer" in Atlanta Magazine and one of the "Legal Elite" in Georgia Trend Magazine. He is a Certified Civil Trial Advocate of the National Board of Trial Advocacy, Chair of the Southeastern Motor Carrier Liability Institute and former chair of the Georgia Insurance Law Institute. He particularly focuses on cases arising from truck wrecks and accidents (tractor trailers truck wrecks, semi truck wrecks,18 wheeler truck wrecks, big rig truck wrecks, log truck wrecks, dump truck wrecks.