Perlmutter & Schuelke, LLP » Trucking Accidents

What State Is Succeeding In Reducing Trucking Accidents?

brooks — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 16:55:30 +0000

Kudos to public safety officials in Massachusetts for their hard work in reducing trucking accidents.

Three of the biggest safety hazards presented by the trucking industry are (1) too heavy of loads — which makes it more difficult to safely control the trucks; (2) improperly maintained vehicles; and (3) truckers driving beyond the allowed number of hours.

Police officers have long known that face inherent problems in trying to remedy these issues.

A story in yesterday’s Boston Globe talked about the problems and some of the measures that Massachusetts is taking to improve safety.

When talking about the problem, the story noted:

When a station is operating — we’ve all seen those illuminated open and closed signs — vehicles that meet the criteria must pull over or face a $500 fine. Theoretically, police just open shop and let violators come to them.

In reality, it doesn’t work that way. The moment a weigh station opens, truckers are on their CB radios spreading the news. Drivers with no alternative may pull over until the “closed’’ sign lights up. A company might even delay shipments to avoid inspections.

“It becomes a game of cat and mouse,’’ says Sergeant Peter Littlefield, head of truck enforcement at the State Police barracks in Concord. “A lot of the guys you get are the good guys. The bad guys go around you.’’

The story also pointed out:

Federal law prohibits truckers from driving more than 11 straight hours, but drivers frequently lie about shifts in order to make more money, police say.

But Massachusetts is fighting back. Instead of the standard weigh stations, the state police have started using portable weigh stations that they can set up at known problem areas or at random points along the road. And when they do it, they take the enforcement seriously.

The program seems to be working. The number of fatal trucking accidents has decreased by 20 percent in recent years so that Massachusetts now has the lowest fatality rate in the country for accidents involving commercial vehicles.

Maybe we could use a little of that program in Texas?

Weary Truckers Create A Risk For I35 Trucking Accidents

brooks — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 20:23:02 +0000

IH 35 is a bit unique in that it spans from the southern border with Mexico to the northern border with Canada. But no matter where you are along the highway, you face a grave danger of being involved in a trucking accident. And yesterday’s Minneapolis Star Tribune had a good article, based in large part on an I35 truck wreck, about one of those risks — tired truck drivers.

For the most part, truck drivers are supposed to be limited in the number of hours they can drive. In 2005, the hours-of-service rules were amended to require a little more rest for drivers. Since that time, the number of fatal trucking accidents has decreased. But it’s still a problem. From the article:

While things are headed in the right direction nationally, annual fatalities in big truck wrecks are still the equivalent of a jetliner crashing once a week, said Steve Keppler of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance.

“If that many plane crashes were happening,” Keppler said, “people would be up in arms and the air traffic system would be shut down.”

And a lot of these trucking accident fatalities are caused by fatigue. You need look no further than the 2005 legislation to see how fatigue contributes to trucking accidents. While the 2005 legislation lowered hours-of-service for most drivers, it also exempted a number of drivers, including those in the agricultural, utility and construction fields. While the rate of fatalities have gone down since the new rules, the accidents involving utility trucks are up 57 percent since their drivers were exempted.

And much of the trucking industry continues to put its head in the sand and say that weary drivers aren’t a problem. In the article, the spokesman for the American Trucking Association called wrecks caused by fatigue “a very small problem.” The trucking industry also sued the Minnesota State Patrol in 2009 to stop police from using a “fatigued driver checklist” to keep truckers off the road.

It’s this attitude that makes trucking cases so interesting. Because of regulations, drivers are required to keep a log of their driving time. But in many cases, the log is altered or the drivers maintain two or more logs to help hide the amount of time that they’re really driving.

Maybe the problem was best summed up by an unidentified driver in the article:

I don’t get paid while I’m sitting waiting to load and unload. My fixed costs doesn’t allow me to run legal…I sleep four hours a night. It isn’t out of choice. It’s finances.

I beg to differ. It is a choice. And it’s a choice that’s putting all of us at risk.

Personal Injury Victims, How Far Will Insurance Adjusters Go To Investigate Your Claim?

brooks — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 13:21:31 +0000

I was having a talk with a fellow personal injury lawyer the other day, and he was griping about the result of a mediation. This was a small car wreck case, and the insurance adjuster dropped the “bombshell” during the mediation that she discovered that the plaintiff had run a 5k race after the car wreck. And not only had the plaintiff run the wreck, but the plaintiff posted a faster time after the wreck than he did the year before.

There are two things to learn from the story. First, if you’re involved in a wreck or accident, the other side will investigate you. In this day and age of the internet, it’s really cheap and easy for defense lawyers or insurance adjusters to spend a little time and find out a lot of information about your life. If you have skeletons in the closet, they’ll find them, even in small cases.

The more important lesson is to be honest with your lawyer. When we were remodeling our house, our builder used to say, “there are no problems, only issues.” If a client tells his lawyer something bad, the lawyer can usually deal with it. But when the client doesn’t tell the truth or fails to include something in the hopes that no one will ever find it, that often becomes a problem. These types of problems ruin cases. So if you’re injured, learn from others’ mistakes and tell your attorney the truth.

Not being honest with your attorney is only one of many mistake you can make that can ruing your case. If you or a loved one has been injured in a wreck, on-the-job injury, or otherwise injured by someone else, request a copy of our book, HOLDING WRONGDOERS ACCOUNTABLE: Avoiding Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Texas Accident Claim. I think you’ll be glad you did.

Injured? When Do You Need To Talk To A Personal Injury Lawyer?

brooks — Wed, 26 May 2010 21:43:38 +0000

I often have the misfortune of telling potential clients that I can’t help them because they didn’t come to us soon enough. Clients often think they’re doing great to call us several months before a statute of limitations runs.

But that’s not always enough notice. A number of cases require immediate attention. For example, in a premises liability case, for best results, we need to be able to inspect the scene as close to the date of the accident as possible. When conditions change, it’s hard, if not impossible, to go back and recreate who was at fault. Sometimes clients can take photos and document the scene so that we do those types of investigations, but it’s safer to get the expert and attorneys out there before any changes are made.

And don’t get me started with trucking cases. In a serious trucking case, the trucking company will have its experts at the scene, inspecting vehicles, etc within a few hours. That’s a huge advantage. An injured person obviously won’t be able to timely research a trucking case unless they hire an attorney early.

Even in some of the most basic car wreck cases, early investigation can be important. Police officers investigate hundreds of accidents per year. You don’t need to talk to them in every case, but when you do, you need to talk to them early so they remember the wreck you were in.

So that’s the answer. Talk to a personal injury lawyer early. Once you miss the time to do investigation, you can’t get that back.

Waiting too long to contact an attorney is only one of many mistakes that accident victims make that can hurt their claims. If you’ve been injured in a Texas accident and you want to avoid those mistakes, order our free book HOLDING WRONGDOERS ACCOUNTABLE: Avoiding Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Texas Accident Claim. We’re on a mission to make sure that insurance companies and other lawyers don’t take advantage of accident victims, and a lot of the advice in the book is designed to prevent that from happening.

Why Should A Bad Driver, A Dangerous Doctor, Or An Unsafe Employer Get A Benefit From Your Health Insurance?

brooks — Tue, 11 May 2010 20:08:30 +0000

A recent Ohio Supreme Court decision allows defendants in personal injury cases to introduce evidence that the plaintiff’s medical providers “wrote off” charges for the plaintiff’s care. Most health insurance companies have agreements with medical providers that the medical providers will accept a reduced amount as payment in full for procedures. For example, in the Ohio case, the plaintiff was billed $21,874.80 for care. This is the amount that the provider would have charged a patient without insurance. However, because of the insurance contract between the patient and the provider, the insurance company paid $7,483.91 and wrote off the rest.

The Ohio trial judge said only allowed evidence of the full $21,874.80 in charges, but the Ohio Supreme Court said that the evidence of the write off should have been admitted. The opinion is here.

A number of other states have held the opposite. How do we deal with it in Texas? Frankly, no one is sure.

Historically, Texas has not allowed in evidence of the write offs. But in the 2003 legislative session, the legislature adopted a rule that reads:

In addition to any other limitation under law, recovery of medical or health care expenses incurred is limited to the amount actually paid or incurred by or on behalf of the claimant.

What does that mean? Without defining “paid” or “incurred” the statute is a model of poor draftsmanship. Despite the statute being around for seven years now, courts still haven’t come to a good conclusion of what it means. I can tell you that in most Travis County courts the judges aren’t allowing in evidence of the write off, but they will reduce the jury’s award for medical expenses after the verdict is rendered to equal the amount that was actually paid, including insurance payments, co-pays, etc.

The result of this is that in two hypothetical cases — one where a driver runs over an employed person with insurance and one where a driver runs over the same employed person without insurance — there will be two very different results due to the existence of health insurance.

But all of this begs the question, “Why should a bad driver, a dangerous doctor, or an unsafe employer get a benefit from your health insurance?”

When there are write offs, there are two possible outcomes. First, the plaintiff could be awarded the full amount of the medical charges even though some are never paid due to the reduction. This would be a benefit to the plaintiff. Second, the plaintiff could be awarded the reduced amount, which would mean the defendant gets a benefit from the health insurance reduction.

So we’re faced with deciding which of two sides gets a benefit: the side that purchased health insurance or had an employer purchase health insurance or the side that committed the wrong that resulted in the suit. If you’re choosing between the two, why should the wrongdoer get the benefit of the insurance? I’ve had a discussion about this law with a number of different people, and I’ve yet to hear any good reasons why benefits of health insurance should not go to the innocent party, but should instead go to the wrongdoer. If you have suggestions, let me know.

And a h/t to Nashville, Tennessee injury lawyer John Day & his blog Day on Torts for the link to the opinion.

A Criminal Conviction For A Trucking Accident

brooks — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 12:16:40 +0000

I often tell our clients that one of the purposes of the civil justice system is to help hold wrongdoers accountable (thus the name of our book). And many times, the civil justice system is the only way to hold wrongdoers accountable. But sometimes the criminal justice system does its part, as it did in an article earlier this week that caught my eye.

It’s not that unusual to find drivers of vehicles in wrecks get tickets, fines, etc. But on Tuesday, the owner of a trucking firm received jail time for his gross negligence in the maintenance of a defective and almost brakeless tractor-trailer that caused a fatal trucking collision.

The judge that handed down the sentence said that he hopes the sentence will send a “strong message” to the trucking community to keep the trucks in good repair and not try and cut corners on safety issues.

I haven’t heard of any similar types of prosecutions in the Central Texas area, but that type of enforcement might make roadways safer for all of us.

What Is A Wrongful Death Claim Worth?

brooks — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 12:00:32 +0000

Earlier this week, I wrote a post asking “What Is The Typical Personal Injury Settlement When Someone Gets Hurt?” In the post, my basic conclusion is that there is no “typical settlement.” Each personal injury case has its own unique facts and must be evaluated on its own merits. If a lawyer tells you he knows the value of your case without talking to you about specifics or without investigating a number of factors of the case, then the lawyer is doing you a disservice.

At about the same time I was writing that post, Ron Miller, a Maryland personal injury lawyer, was writing a post titled “Wrongful Death Compensation: How Much?” In the post, Ron looks at an academic article that tries to create a more uniform system for awarding wrongful death damages. And Ron’s response was very similar to mine. It’s hard to have a uniform system because “facts vary wildly from case to case.” Each case is different, and awards (or values clients put on elements of awards) differ from person to person.

For example, two personal injury victims may say they like to scuba dive and they can’t do it any longer. However, one client has been scuba diving a couple of times while the other is willing to spend $5,000 twice a year on scuba diving trips. The value of being unable to dive probably means a lot more to the second than the first.

All elements of damages vary this way, and it’s just impossible to put a uniform number or value on a claim or to estimate what a claim’s worth without knowing most of the facts of the case.

Single Vehicle Wreck Kills One

jferris — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 13:52:03 +0000

An I-80 car wreck near San Francisco Bay continues to baffle authorities as the lone survivor doesn’t recall the details of the wreck.

“This case turned out to be a bit of a mystery in more ways than one. It seems the single vehicle wreck killed the driver and seriously injured a passenger. When EMS crews and the police responded, they found a black Acura Integra wrapped around a pole on the side of the highway,” explained Brooks Schuelke, an Austin personal injury lawyer.

Eyewitness reports seem to indicate that the driver of the car lost control of his vehicle as he was swerving to avoid another car that was speeding and weaving in and out of traffic. The “other” driver didn’t hang around either. The Acura driver was pronounced dead at the scene and the seriously injured passenger was air lifted to the nearest medical center for treatment.

“Even though the facts of this case, as far as we know them, seem to indicate that the driver of the Acura was merely avoiding another speeding car, there are questions about the driver’s conduct. For example, questions remain about which lane the Acura was in and what the driver was doing at the time the other car supposedly caused him to swerve violently and to go into a slide,” commented Schuelke.

Did the driver of the Acura see this other car that was being driven recklessly? Was he not able to slow his own speed down and switch lanes to get out of the way of the other car? Or was he also traveling at unsafe speeds, which may account for the swerve ending in a fatal crash when he lost control of his own car?

Until the driver of the other mysterious vehicle is tracked down, the police don’t have much to go on until the passenger is able to tell them what was going on prior to the accident. The passenger may want to take the time to speak to a seasoned Austin personal injury lawyer to discuss the details of the accident. It is possible that he may have a good case to recover compensation for his severe injuries.

Contact Perlmutter & Schuelke LLP at http://www.civtrial.com or (512) 476-4944.

Even with Icy Roads, Drivers Should Adjust Their Speed Accordingly

jferris — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 13:48:27 +0000

Slick roads cause accidents. Drivers need to drive according to the weather conditions.

Just recently in Fort Worth, Texas, there were two deadly accidents attributed to the icy road conditions. It had just snowed, and the roads were particularly dangerous. The police were busy that night responding to the two wrecks, one on the East Loop 820 and the other on I-30.

The accident on the East Loop involved a 22-year-old man, Haun Ng (names have been changed to protect the identity of the victims), who was inspecting his car for damages after being involved in a fender bender with a tow truck. Another passing vehicle suddenly slammed into Ng’s car, threw Ng over a barrier and on to the highway several hundred feet below. Ng was pronounced at the scene when the EMS crews responded. He died due to the blunt force trauma and the fall.

The accident on the I-30 involved an 18-wheeler that hit a pickup truck, causing a multiple vehicle crash. There were five cars, two semis, and two pickup trucks damaged in the collision. One man was killed.

The police reports for each of these accidents indicate that the road conditions were bad that day, but there were still some unanswered questions relating to both deadly crashes. While it was clear the roads were slick, questions remain about the drivers’ speeds and their other driving ability. It’s a driver’s responsibility to drive according to the road conditions, and if they were speeding, they were reckless and negligent.

Other questions that will need to be answered relate to whether the drivers of the vehicles that caused the accidents were doing something else at the time of the crashes rather than paying attention to their driving. For instance, were they on the phone, talking to another passenger, using a laptop or reaching to pick up something in the backseat. A moment’s inattention is enough to cause a fatal accident.

When it comes to determining liability in car crashes, it is important to know what the drivers were doing just prior to impact. A skilled Austin personal injury attorney is able to assess any auto crash case based on the evidence at the scene, the police reports and the facts of the case as told by the victim of the crash. In both the crashes in this article, the families of the deceased may wish to speak to a dedicated Austin personal injury attorney and discuss filing a wrongful death lawsuit.

Brooks Schuelke is an Austin personal injury attorney with Perlmutter & Schuelke LLP. Contact an Austin injury lawyer at Civtrial.com or (512) 476-4944.

Another Story On The Dangers Of Texting And Driving

brooks — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:40:46 +0000

If you’ve read our website, you know we’ve written extensively on the dangers of texting and driving. You can read some of our posts on the dangers of text messaging while driving, including viewing our resources pages by looking at our auto accidents and text messaging page.

Recently, Bryan/College Station television station KBTX had a good story on these dangers. You can watch the story below: