Georgia Truck Accident Lawyers Blog

The United States Department of Transportation has reported that 5,300 people died in crashes involving large commercial trucks in 2006. 126,000 more were injured. A leading cause of these crashes were situations where the drivers involved fell asleep, suffered heart attacks or seizures or otherwise were so physically impaired as be unable to safely operate their trucks. Indeed, according to an Article recently issued by the Associated Press, hundreds of thousands of tractor-trailers and bus drivers in the United States are unfit and unqualified to have commercial driver’s licenses. As an example of this problem, in a 30-page study issued by the General Accounting Office, over 1,000 drivers with vision, hearing or seizure disorders had applied for disability benefits with the Veterans Affair Department. And yet, these same drivers were operating commercial tractor-trailers and buses on our highways with medical certificates certifying they were fit to drive. Once again, a lack of regulatory oversight is largely responsible for the problems caused by these unsafe drivers.

In our wrongful death practice, it is not unusual for us to see horrific collisions involving unfit and unsafe drivers. We have had many cases where drivers have been under the influence of stimulants because of fatigue, where other drivers could not pass a fitness test and were driving with licenses without proper medical certifications, and other cases involving drivers with seizure disorders, neuropathy to their legs and feet and other similar health problems that prevented them from safely operating commercial vehicles. In short, our practice experience mirrors the nationwide experience. We believe the drivers involved in our firm’s cases were able to drive and inflict harm on innocent members of the motoring public because of a lack of regulatory oversight.

The United States agency responsible for regulating this area, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, has acknowledged that it has not completed any of the 8 recommendations that U.S. Safety Regulators purposed in 2001. One such regulation would set minimum standards for officials who determine whether truck drivers are medically safe to operate commercial vehicles. Another would prevent truck drivers from “doctor shopping” to find doctors who might overlook a risky health situation and nonetheless certify a driver as medically able to operate a commercial vehicle. Most observers do not believe that any of the 8 recommendations will be implemented before President Bush leaves office. This is hardly surprising because his Administration has emphasized deregulation of the trucking industry.

Just as we have seen in the mortgage crisis, if there is lack of federal regulatory oversight, the marketplace alone cannot regulate effectively abuses that will undoubtably arise when there are no regulations. The trucking industry is in serious need of additional regulations from a safety standpoint. We can only hope that future administrations will address the many safety issues involved. Until such time as there is greater regulation, regrettably, we have no doubt but that we will continue to see more and more serious injury claims and wrongful death cases arising from unfit and unsafe truck drivers.

As attorneys who represent the young man who is the most seriously injured surviving passenger in the Bluffton University Baseball Team's bus crash in Atlanta in 2007, we listened with great interest today to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) members explaining their findings about what caused the crash that took so many lives, and left so many injured.

Disastrous events such as this one can provide important "lessons" on how needless injuries and deaths can be prevented. Most disturbing about today's hearing was the sense that past lessons from other horrific wrecks have been ignored. Here is just some of what the NTSB discussed today (an official transcript will be available later):

The NTSB placed primary responsibility for the crash on the bus driver, who among other things veered onto an exit ramp at high speed (in excess of the speed limit), and failed to react by slowing the bus, apparently because he believed he was still in the HOV lane of I-75. As is well-documented, the bus then struck a railing on the overpass, and toppled from the overpass onto the interstate below, which caused many passengers to be ejected.

The NTSB discussed evidence that the driver had driven 10 1/2 hours the day before to meet this bus, and then started driving this bus at 4:30 a.m. with at most 6 1/2 hours of sleep. One NTSB member referred to the driver as an an "unqualified driver" because his medical certificate had expired, and noted that the bus company failed to monitor and instruct drivers as to their medical qualifications to drive. The NTSB had other criticisms as well.

What is also disturbing is the lessons not taken from the history of earlier fatal wrecks on this same exit ramp. The NTSB noted that this ramp had been the site of nine wrecks--three of them fatal--in the past, six of which had been single-vehicle wrecks. The drivers involved were not from the Atlanta area, the NTSB observed.

As one NTSB member stated, GDOT (the Georgia Department of Transportation) "missed the boat" in failing to identify the exit properly with adequate signage, and failing to install adequate traffic control devices, among other things, for the "unexpected" arrangement that drivers found at this exit. NTSB thus identified these failures as a contributing cause of the horrendous wreck.

The NTSB also discussed GDOT's failure to respond appropriately to the documented history of wrecks and fatalities at this same location.

The NTSB discussed the need for greater protection of occupants of buses. Prior bus crashes show that occupants are killed or injured because of the absence of simple protections such as seat belts--there were none on this bus. Here is one excerpt:

"The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the motorcoach driver’s mistaking the HOV-only left exit ramp to Northside Drive for the southbound Interstate 75 HOV through lane. Contributing to the accident driver’s route mistake was the failure of the Georgia Department of Transportation to install adequate traffic control devices to identify the separation and divergence of the Northside Drive HOV-only left exit ramp from the southbound Interstate 75 HOV through lane. Contributing to the severity of the accident was the motorcoach’s lack of an adequate occupant protection system."

We can only hope and pray that the lessons of the Bluffton crash--which should have been learned previously--will not be ignored this time.

The NTSB's own "synopsis" of its report appears below, and can be found at http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/2008/HAR0801.htm:

Continue reading " NTSB Report on Bluffton University Bus Accident Illustrates Preventable Dangers Causing Personal Injury and Wrongful Death--Again and Again " »