Sleeping trucker may have caused fatal Georgia trucking accident
A 48-year-old trucker was killed in a Georgia tractor-trailer accident when his tanker truck flipped over on U.S. 27, the Rome News-Tribune reported.
The Lincoln, Alabama man died Tuesday in the single-vehicle accident just inside the Polk County line. He was traveling northbound on U.S. 27 when his truck left the highway, traveled 400 feet through brush, and finally overturned, scattering ash along the pavement, according to the Georgia Highway Patrol.
Police arrive on the scene shortly before 8:20 a.m. There were no skid marks on the highway to indicate that the driver had ever applied the brakes. Police believe he could have fallen asleep at the wheel.
Thankfully, no motorists were involved in this crash. As our Georgia trucking accident lawyers frequently report, innocent motorists are most often injured or killed in accidents with large commercial trucks. In 2008, one out of nine fatal traffic accidents on the nation's roads involved large trucks. A total of 380,000 large trucks were involved in accidents, killing 4,229 people and injuring more than 90,000, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Of those killed, 3,139 were occupants of other vehicles and 413 were non-occupants, such as bicyclists or pedestrians.
A study by the Stanford University School of Medicine found that 78 percent of 159 commercial long-haul truck drivers studied had sleep apnea, a fatigue-causing sleep disorder.
"When 78 percent of the people coming toward you on the road in 40-ton trucks have such a disorder, you have a problem," says psychiatrist William Dement, director of the Sleep Research Centre and senior author of the study.
As far back as 1997, safety advocates have pushed for trucks to be equipped with data recorders to keep track of driving hours and ensure that truckers are not violating laws governing how many hours a day they can drive and how many hours a week they can remain behind the wheel. Those laws are in place to protect the public but compliance, when it is checked at all, relies upon a drivers hand-written log book.
Cost of installing the computers would be less than $1,000 per truck, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
If you are involving in a Georgia trucking accident, contact the Atlanta truck accident lawyers at Finch McCranie LLP for a free and confidential appointment to discuss your rights. Call (800) 228-9159 or at (404) 658-9070 or contact us through this website.
