Florida Injury Attorney Blog

In October of 2005, a semi truck driver apparently fell asleep while driving his semi truck and crashed into a bus carrying high school students.  Five people were killed and many were injured.  Investigators determined that the semi truck driver likely fell asleep at the wheel prior to the crash. 

As we have discussed several times on this blog, fatigue is a major cause of, and contributor to, motor vehicle accidents involving semi trucks.  As a result, semi truck drivers are regulated by federal regulations in the number of hours they can drive without a rest.  One way for police and inspectors to determine how many hours a semi truck driver has been driving is to look at the driver's logs which are supposed to show time driving, on duty hours and off duty hours.  The problem with using driver's logs as the measure of number of driving and on duty hours is that they are prepared by the drivers themselves and can easily be falsified.  There are ways to check the information in a driver's logs, i.e. by comparing them with fuel receipts, inspection reports and GPS data, but that information is not always readily available to an officer or inspector who is checking a driver's logs.  Trucking companies are also supposed to monitor a driver's log books to make sure their drivers are keeping accurate logs and are not exceeding the regulated hours of service and driving while fatigued.

According to a newspaper in Wisconsin, the semi truck driver who caused the injury and fatal accident described above falsified his driving logs at least 12 times in the two months prior to the crash.  He did this to make it look like he took sufficient off duty hours to be well rested while driving.  As a result of these allegations, federal officials are charging him criminally, and if he is convicted, he faces up to 60 years in prison.

As it stands now, it can be difficult for trucking companies that are considering an applicant to drive a commercial motor vehicle to identify which truck drivers are qualified to operate a big truck thousands of miles over the roads in the United States and which are unsafe and likely to cause an injury or fatal accident.  In other cases, trucking companies do not even bother to perform a background check to see if an unsafe truck driver applying for a job has a history of accidents, failed drug and/or alcohol tests, failed inspections, traffic tickets and/or a criminal record. 

For those trucking companies that do try to look into a truck driver's history to determine if he/she is qualified to safely drive a semi truck, it can be difficult to track down the documents that tell the story of a truck driver's past.  These documents are often spread out among many different sources, destroyed or never maintained in the first place. 

Plaintiffs' lawyers who know how to investigate unsafe truck drivers and trucking companies after a serious injury accident know where and how to look for documents and information.  Sometimes, trucking companies either do not know how or are not willing to take the time to do so. 

However, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), which oversees the trucking industry, has proposed an idea to centralize this important information about the safety of truck drivers.  The Driver Information Resource, which is in its final stages, would be a centralized database that can be accessed by trucking companies and other agencies.  It would allow people to access crash reports and documents indicating when truck drivers were taken out of service due to failed inspections, for instance, as a result of unsafe equipment or improper recording of hours of service, or driving, on log sheets. 

This database on semi truck drivers across the country would be an important way for trucking companies and other agencies interested in the trucking industry to efficiently screen truck drivers and try to prevent putting unqualified and unsafe truck drivers on the roads operating potentially dangerous semi trucks.

According to recent studies and statistics, more people between the ages of 10 and 24 die from motor vehicle accidents than any other cause.  Approximately 400,000 people under the age of 25 die each year across the world.  That is over 1,000 per day.  With the number of people driving in the United States, we comprise a relatively higher percentage of those deaths.  By the same token, Florida comprises a high percentage of those deaths when compared to other states.

As a result, police and other law enforcement officials created Operation Safe Driver which sets aside certain weeks out of the year where law enforcement officials target aggressive drivers and try to educate drivers as to safe driving practices.  October 19 through October 25 is one such week.  Police and law enforcement in Jacksonville and throughout the country will focus on drivers of tractor trailers and passenger vehicles that are driving aggressively.  This can mean speeding excessively, tailgating, unsafely switching lanes and many other dangerous activities.  Law enforcement officials also target those drivers who are not wearing seat belts and increase roadside inspections of tractor trailers.

There were fewer fatal vehicle accidents in Florida in 2007 for the second year in a row according to a report from the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP).  Those accidents decreased by 4%.  There were also fewer injury accidents in Florida in 2007, but those accidents only saw a 1% reduction.  One negative from the FHP report was that alcohol-related fatal accidents increased by 13% in Florida in 2007.  FHP officials have indicated that drivers can expect to see more saturation patrols and DUI checkpoints.  A saturation patrol occurs when a group of police officers flood an area in order to catch drivers committing certain violations, such as driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs (aka DUI or DWI).