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It seems that almost every year, driving truck is among one of the most dangerous jobs. In fact, most top 10 dangerous job lists include truck driving. While we recognize the difficulties in measuring “dangerousness,” the data pretty much speaks for itself:

Transportation incidents increased from 1,984 in 2014 to 2,054 in 2015. Roadway incidents consistently account for the greatest share of fatal work-related transportation injuries. Of these, 660 fatal injuries, or 32 percent of the total transportation incidents, resulted from a roadway collision with another vehicle.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has published a variety of interactive charts relating to fatalities and injuries in the workplace.

A brief review of these charts makes it overwhelmingly clear that transportation fatalities and injuries are a significant problem.

According to The Large Truck Crash Causation Study – Analysis Brief conducted by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Office of Research and Analysis, three major types of critical events were assigned to large trucks:

• Running out of the travel lane, either into another lane or off the road (32 percent of the large trucks in the LTCCS sample were assigned this critical event)
• Vehicle loss of control due to traveling too fast for conditions, cargo shift, vehicle systems failure, poor road conditions, or other reasons (29 percent)
• Colliding with the rear end of another vehicle in the truck’s travel lane (22 percent).

The following tables shows the critical reasons assigned, by major categories.

This table shows associated factors assigned in large truck crashes and their relative risk importance:

According to the study:

One-half of the LTCCS crashes involved collisions between a large truck and a passenger vehicle (car, pickup truck, van, or sport utility vehicle). In those crashes, the same associated factors coded most often for the large trucks usually were also coded most often for the passenger vehicles. For both large trucks and passenger vehicles, there was a statistically significant link between the following 10 associated factors (listed in descending order according to how often they were coded for the large truck) and coding of the critical reason:

1. Interruption of the traffic flow
2. Unfamiliarity with roadway
3. Inadequate surveillance
4. Driving too fast for conditions
5. Illegal maneuver
6. Inattention
7. Fatigue
8. Illness
9. False assumption of other road user’s actions
10. Distraction by object or person inside the vehicle.

While there have been many attempts to try to improve roadway safety, as a society, we seem to keep coming up short. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t stop trying.

It’s also worth noting that this isn’t simply a “truck driver problem.” Over the years, our attorneys have come to know many excellent drivers.

However, whatever the reason, too many people are injured every single year by collisions with tractor-trailer trucks, and many of those involve actions or inactions taken by drivers.

The nature of our work gives a window into the lives of the people impacted by collisions with tractor-trailer trucks.

Sadly, too many of the truck cases we work involve circumstances that could have been avoided with more measures taken to prevent some of the critical reasons listed above. In fact, many of the driver-specific critical reasons could be greatly reduced with relatively straightforward solutions.

Until we recognize that these numbers are unacceptable, we should all be thinking about how we can bring more attention to roadway safety and putting pressure on the people who can make changes to make the roads safer for all of us.

This blog series aims to give current and potential clients information to help them understand the various stages of a personal injury lawsuit. The first five parts of this blog series have covered hiring an attorney, investigation of your claim, getting treatment, pre-suit negotiations, and filing suit. The next stage in your lawsuit is the discovery phase.

The discovery phase of your lawsuit is just like it sounds, the chance to discover information about the defendant that may be helpful to your case. Generally speaking, there are three types of discovery. The first is called ‘interrogatories’ which is a series of written questions. The second is called ‘document production’ which, as it sounds, are documents you ask the defendant to give you. The last type of discovery is ‘depositions’ which is a series of questions asked under oath of the parties, witnesses, experts and any other individuals that may be helpful to your case.

The first two, interrogatories and document production, are sent to the defendant in writing. The defendant has thirty days (unless they request more time) to send written responses and copies of the documents. Often, the attorneys will disagree over the nature, scope, or subject matter of the questions. When that happens, a Judge will be asked to get involved and make decisions about these disagreements. There can be multiple rounds of written requests sent between the parties.

The last type of discovery, depositions, does not typically happen until both parties are finished exchanging written information and documents. Depositions are taken under oath in the presence of a court reporter. The court reporter is trained to type every word said during the deposition and create a transcript of the entire conversation. The attorney asks the witness a series of questions about nearly all aspects of the case. The purpose of depositions is to give the parties an idea of what will be said during trial.

In a straight forward case with one plaintiff and one defendant, the process usually takes a matter of months. In more complicated cases, or cases with multiple parties, the discovery process can take years.

The discovery phase, while frustrating as a client, is one of the most helpful aspects in getting your case resolved. Negotiating the intricacies of a lawsuit can be difficult. Have a legal question about your case? Call our offices, one of our attorneys will be glad to speak with you.

Trucker hats went from being a stereotype for truckers to a trendy accessory for the fashion-forward. But now they’re becoming futuristic life-saving technology thanks to the work of Ford and GTB, a Brazilian-based company. Ford’s SafeCap uses accelerometers and gyroscopes to recognize when a trucker might be falling asleep (literally nodding off). When the hat senses this, it triggers vibrations and lights within the hat to alert the driver.

The hat is still being tested and marketed in Brazil, but the hope is to develop it for sales and use in other countries. Driver fatigue is a huge problem when it comes to traffic safety. It’s estimated that 1 in 25 drivers have fallen asleep while driving, with drowsy driving being “responsible for 72,000 crashes, 44,000 injuries, and 800 deaths in 2013” per the NHTSA. As it relates to trucking, fatigue was listed as an “associated factor” in roughly 18,000 truck crashes resulting in injury or death that were studied by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).

Hats off to Ford for developing a potentially life-saving piece of technology that truckers are likely to wear and use.