Advocates Call on Bus Companies to Increase Safety Measures to Reduce Risks of Trucking Accidents in Georgia and Elsewhere
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) just wrapped up a two-day forum that focused on efforts to help prevent tour bus accidents. This forum comes after many deadly accidents this year, like the one on Interstate 95 near the Bronx-Westchester border that took the lives of 15 passengers and injured 18 more. The forum took concerns from federal regulators, safety experts, and the tour bus and trucking industries about ways to make our roads even safer and how to prevent future trucking accidents in Georgia and elsewhere in the United States.
They also discussed how and why previous safety recommendations seemed to fail or had not been fully implemented, according to Lo Hud.
Our Georgia trucking accident lawyers advocate the reexamination of current rules and regulations of these large trucks and their drivers. We also understand the great dangers facing passenger-vehicle motorists when involved in an accident with one of these larger vehicles -- the passenger-vehicle occupant is at a much higher risk for injury or death as a result of an accident with a large truck or commercial bus.
According to the Associated Press, big tour buses are involved in accident that cause about 20 deaths a year to passengers. These statistics mirror those of airline passenger trips. Between 2000 and 2009, tour buses were involved in 338 fatal crashes. Truck fatalities have been steadily decreasing, falling from 5,200 in 2005 to 3,200 in 2009.
Still, thousands are seriously injured in accidents with large commercial vehicles each year. And, like airline traffic, Atlanta is a southern hub which increases the risk to motorists throughout Georgia.
"We must remind ourselves that each data point in these statistics represents a family member that will never come home to loved ones," NTSB member Robert Sumwalt told The Associated Press.
The Obama administration has recently proposed several steps in an effort to toughen bus and truck regulations. One of their proposals would require that all trucks and buses be equipped with devices that record how many hours drivers are behind the wheel as many drivers are overworked and driving while fatigued. As many as a third of all commercial motor vehicle accidents are due to truck driver fatigue, according to NTSB.
The NTSB has been suggesting that buses increase the strength of their roofs for years now. They also encourage bus companies to offer better emergency exits, better fire protection and windows that prevent passengers from being ejected.
They would also like buses to include electronic stability control in an effort to prevent rollovers, warning systems that alert drivers when they're drifting into another lane, adaptive cruise control that automatically adjusts speed to traffic and warning systems that alert drivers to an impeding collision.
"From an economic standpoint, it would do a great deal of harm to this industry and wouldn't improve safety," said Dave Osiecki, senior vice president at the American Trucking Associations.
In other words, it's about the money. Yet these same companies will be the first to scream foul when a careless accident leads to a personal injury or wrongful death verdict to compensate victims of preventable injury.
If you are involved in a Georgia trucking accident, contact the Atlanta bus 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.
