Georgia Truck Accident Lawyers Blog

A recent trucking accident in Georgia nearly occurred on the railroad tracks at Georgia Highway 92 and Campbellton Street crossing. Luckily in this incident, the truck was able to free itself from the track before it was hit by the oncoming train, according to the Times-Georgian.

Douglasville Police Chief, Chris Womack reports that the driver has received a route violation for the incident.

Our Georgia trucking accident attorneys recognize that this is the same location in which a similar incident happened back in April. The only difference with the April incident is that the disabled dump truck was hit by a Norfolk Southern freight train. Luckily, no one was injured in the accident, but the dump truck was severely damaged.

“The reason this keeps happening is that truck drivers pay no attention to the signs saying not to cross there,” said Douglasville City Manager Bill Osborne.

Osborne goes on to say that these types of accident would not happen if the truck drivers would just abide by Georgia Department of Transportation crossing signs in the area. These are signs that direct all of the traffic heading northbound on Highway 92 east to Bankhead Avenue and then on over to the crossing at Mosby Street. The traffic is then directed back on Strickland Street and then over to Highway 92. This is a simple route that is used to prevent catastrophic railroad crossing-trucking accidents.

Osborne says that one of the main reasons that trucks are getting stuck near these railroad crossings is because the steep hill on the railroad's south side. The incline makes it extremely easy for these large trucks to get stuck.

Because there have been so many crossing problems, highway officials are proposing, again, a relocation plan for Highway 92.

It may not be the fault of the drivers says Larry G. Smith. Smith is a freelance accident investigator. He was at the scene of the most recent incident at the Douglasville railroad crossing and concluded that the signs in the area are confusing and may not be understandable to drivers who may not be familiar with the area. He says that visiting drivers may not understand the signs because it's not typical for state routes to run on streets. They're usually taken through highways.

Smith did make a note of the 66 incidents that that happened at Douglasville's 15 railroad crossings. Since 1976, these incidents have resulted in 12 injuries and nine fatalities.

One of his recommendations to help reduce the number of accidents in these areas is to reduce the speed limit for the trains that pass through these crossings.

Osborne says that is not a decision that the local government can make. They are not in charge of controlling the speed limits for these trains.

Continue reading " Douglasville Railroad Crossing Popular Spot for Trucking Accidents in Georgia " »

By 2014, trucking companies in the United States could potentially face a 30 percent surge in wage bills amid a trucker shortage and an increased demand for freight shipments. In efforts to meet demands, drivers are taking on more hours, longer trips and heavy loads, which is leaving us all with increased risks of being involved in a trucking accident in Georgia.

Our Georgia trucking accident attorneys know the trucker shortage is growing critical and is expected to double by next year. Trucking companies will have 300,000 open full-time positions -- about a third of the workforce.

The increase in demand is a good sign that our economy is slowly recovering from the July dip. For company owners to keep drivers, they're increasing wages for their employees which in turn increases prices for customers. A Georgia-based trucking company recently upped its employee's salary by 2.5 percent, which resulted in a $10 million increase for the year.

“The truck-driver population is growing at less than 1 percent a year,” said Jeff Kauffman, a Sterne Agee & Leach Inc.

With more and more regulations being placed on the trucking industry, drivers are proving to be more and more difficult to come by. Regulations limiting driver hours and trucking loads are causing companies to make more, shorter trips. Shorter trips shorten the paychecks of these drivers.

New regulations that make a driver's history more available helps to weed out bad drivers. While that's good news for us motorists, that's bad news for companies who have to get deliveries to destinations on time.

With all the new criteria, the pool of potential hires is growing smaller and smaller.

Another strike against these companies is the cost for new, more fuel efficient trucks that are required to meet federal emission rules. Add that to the rising costs of diesel and we're talking a pretty penny here, just to make a single delivery. This year's cost of fuel is roughly 30 percent more for each gallon than it was during this time last year.

“If it was purely a decision based on price, I probably already have moved to rail. But the flip side is, there’s a service difference favoring truckers because of their greater speed," said Kauffman.

It’s even hard to believe that drivers are hard to come by with an average unemployment rate of nearly 10 percent in the United States. Drivers typically spend about three weeks traveling with a truckload carrier at a time and these are some of the longest hauls in the delivery industry. Each trailer only has items for one customer at one time.

Regardless, drivers are spending too many consecutive hours on our roadways trying to make these deliveries in a timely fashion for these companies. The problem is that the shortage in drivers in leading to overworked current employees and increasing risks for fatal, and preventable, accidents on our roadways.

Continue reading " Shortage in Drivers Make Travel More Dangerous and Trucking Accidents in Georgia More Likely " »

Two people were injured in a tractor-trailer accident in Oconee County. Involved in the accident were a tractor-trailer, concrete truck and an SUV. U.S. 441 South of Tappan Spur Road and the Morgan County line was shut down for a number of hours after the accident, according to local authorities.

The accident happened when 2005 Freightliner, that was heading southbound, experienced mechanical failure that caused its front left tire to fall off, according to reports. The trailer sideswiped a Mack 600 truck that was carrying concrete. The Mack truck was heading northbound when it was forced into the path of an SUV, according to Online Athens. The concrete truck flipped quite a few times. All three vehicles had to be cleared before the highway could reopen, authorities said.

Our Georgia trucking accident attorneys realize just how dangerous our highways can be for all motorists, but when you throw a semi, a concrete truck and an SUV into the mix, you've got a recipe for some serious damage. The woman that was driving the SUV sustained injuries as a result of the accident. The driver of the concrete truck, that rolled several times, sustained critical injuries. Emergency responders transported the concrete truck driver to Athens Regional Medical Center, according to troopers.

If you are involved in a traffic accident with a truck, it is important for you to contact an experienced attorney to help you determine fault and to fight for the proper compensation from not only the driver, but from the trucking company.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there were roughly 380,000 large trucks involved in traffic accidents on U.S. roadways in 2008 alone. During that same year, 4,066 trucks were involved in fatal accidents that ended up taking the lives of 4,229 people. These traffic deaths accounted for more than 10 percent of all of the reported traffic fatalities in 2008. Another 90,000 people sustained injuries in these accidents. The trucks in these statistics are classified as vehicles with a gross weight rating greater than 10,000 pounds.

Percentage of fatality occurrences in trucking accidents:

-74 percent: occupants of another vehicle.

-10 percent: nonoccupants.

-16 percent: occupants of a large truck.

Percentage of Injury ocurrences in trucking accidents:

-71 percent: occupants of another vehicle.

-3 percent: nonoccupants.

-26 percent: occupants of a large truck.

According to the NHTSA, nearly 200 trucks were involved in fatal traffic accidents in the state of Georgia in 2008. A number of these traffic fatalities can be avoided if motorists can learn to travel more cautiously among these large trucks on our roadways.

You are more than 95 percent more likely to be killed, as a passenger-vehicle occupant, than a truck driver in one of these accidents. One statistic that benefits a truck drivers is that roughly 75 percent of the traffic accidents are caused by the passenger vehicles.

Continue reading " Oconee County Trucking Accident Causes Injury and Shuts down U.S. 441 " »

According to the National Highways Traffic Safety Administration, more than a third of all traffic accidents involve a speeding driver. A 28-year-old woman was killed and two others were injured after a fatal trucking accident in Georgia. The woman that was killed was a passenger in a tractor-trailer that was carrying logs that overturned after colliding with an SUV and two other vehicles, according to CBS Atlanta.

The accident happened on I-85 and held up rush-hour traffic for hours. The accident happened when a pickup truck swerved into the emergency lane because of a flat tire. The maneuver caused the tractor-trailer to hit an SUV and then collide with another tractor-trailer and a sedan, according to reports.

Trucking accidents on interstates can oftentimes turn deadly. Our Atlanta trucking accident attorneys understand that large trucks traveling at such high rates of speed are extremely dangerous in the event of an accident. Motorists are urged to be extremely cautious when traveling on Interstates and expressways with these big rigs.

Speeding not only increases risks of fatal accidents, but it can do quite a number on fuel costs. In an attempt to reduce truck's consumption of fuel, the Obama Administration is making its first attempt at regulating the efficiency of heavy-duty trucks, including city buses and garbage trucks. The administration aims to improve tractor-trailer fuel economy by about 20 percent by 2018. These savings will total about $50 billion in fuel cost savings over the span of five years and will decrease carbon- dioxide emissions.

“It’s an exciting time for our industry,” said Bill Graves, president and chief executive officer of the American Trucking Associations in Arlington, Virginia. “It was a win-win for everyone.”

The reduction of fuel costs will make big rigs more expensive though. The cost of a one of these trucks will increase about $6,220 because of the new fuel-saving technology. But in the long run truck operators will end up saving $73,000 in fuel costs over the lifetime of the trucks, according to Bloomberg.

“If the customer saves $2,000 a year in fuel, then he’s willing to pay for that,” said Martin Daum, president and chief executive officer of Daimler Trucks North America LLC. “If he saves very little then we can’t ask for something. It’s a function of what technology we put on the truck and what the fuel price is.”

Trucking companies are the ones who will have to dish out the up-front costs for the more expensive technology, but they will be able to pay for the investments through fuel savings in 18 months to 24 months.

It's the small-business truckers that will have a hard time paying for the new technology in these trucks, especially when costs from other regulations like electronic data recorders and mandatory speed limiters are factored in.

Still, the effort is worth it. Speeding trucks exponentially increase the devastation in the event of an accident.

Continue reading " Fatal Trucking Accident in Georgia Kills Newlywed on I-85 -- Obama Administration Puts More Regulations on Trucking Industry " »