Georgia Truck Accident Lawyers Blog

According to the 2008 NAFTA Safety Statistics, 4,341 people were killed, and an additional 81,200 people were injured in connection with truck crashes involving a commercial vehicle. Unfortunately, many of these accidents were the result of driver fatigue which is wholly preventable. Truck drivers are at a significant risk of fatigue due to long, monotonous hours spent behind the wheel. Fatigue negatively impacts overall driving performance, slows reaction times, decreases situational awareness and impairs judgment. A study by the Adelaide Centre for Sleep Research found that drivers who had been awake for 24 straight hours have an equivalent driving performance to a person who has a blood alcohol level of 0.10, which would exceed the legal level of intoxication in most states. Commercial truck drivers and motor carriers are under a duty pursuant to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations to maintain various records associated with their operation, such as driver’s logs. Not surprisingly, these logs are often incomplete, inaccurate and sometimes completely fabricated. When representing clients who are injured as a result of tractor-trailer accidents, it is important for the victims attorney to obtain all documents that can be used to verify and/or challenge the accuracy of these logs. Trucking litigation presents a unique set of issues and it is the attorney’s obligation to work to both preserve and discover information about violations of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations.

If you have been injured or lost a loved one as a result of a truck accident, contact the Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP, who have been representing victims of these accidents for over 40 years.

The Georgia injuries lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP have been representing victims of dangerous products for over 40 years. Some of those victims died as a result of injuries they sustained in automobile accidents from defective seat belt designs. Remember the cars with the separate shoulder strap that automatically came across as soon as the car was started. It was a novel, but dangerous design. Recently the Commercial Appeal reported that a 14-year old boy, who was left paralyzed below the waste from a 2002 automobile wreck, has been awarded $6.5 million by a Memphis jury. The boy, who was 6-years old at the time of the accident, was in the backseat of his grandfather’s 1995 Mercury retrained by an adult seatbelt. The shoulder strap was behind the boy because it did not fit. When his car was struck head-on by the second car, the boy was seriously injured. The accident resulted in the wrongful death of the boy’s father, grandfather and driver of the other car. Ford Motor Company was found to be 15% liable for the total $43.8 million judgment for an adult seatbelt that was defective and not suitable for a child.

If you have been injured in an automobile accident , tractor trailer accident or been seriously injured as a result of using a dangerous or defective product, contact the experienced Georgia injury attorneys at Finch McCranie, LLP. For a free evaluation of your case, call us at 1-800-228-9159.

Georgia injury lawyers are well aware of how often preventable truck accidents occur because trucking companies are negligent in either the hiring or retention of dangerous drivers. Recently, we took the deposition of the owner of a trucking company who testified that he had never run a motor vehicle report on one of his drivers because he had known him for such a long time, that it was "not necessary". Had he done so, he would have discovered that the driver had more than 20 traffic citations which included speeding and racing. Incredibly, the owner of the trucking business promoted the driver to a position in charge of safety. His duties include making sure that the company is in compliance with the regulations of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration!

The Charlottesville Daily Progress recently reported on the trial of a wrongful death case involving negligent supervision of a truck driver. They reported that a Virginia jury has ordered the owners and driver of a tractor-trailer to pay more than $5 million to the family of a 16-year old girl who was killed in a 2008 trucking accident. Following a two-day trial, jurors found that Don Swisher Trucking Corp. and McCann Delivery Service were negligent for failing to supervise the driver and allowing him to drive a truck with defective parts.

If you or a loved on have been injured as a result of a trucking accident, call the Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP who have been representing the victims of truck accidents in serious injury and wrongful death cases for over 40 years.