Portland Personal Injury Law Blog

A study was recently implemented to get at the root cause of commercial truck accidents. What they found was alarming.
 
Accidents involving trucks and other commercial vehicles are on the rise in the U.S., according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Last year, 500,000 commercial trucks were involved in an accident. As a result of those accidents, there were 100,000 serious injuries and more than 5,000 fatalities, which was up from 3,200 fatalities from the previous year.

Given the fact that there is expected to be a 20 percent increase in commercial trucks on the nation’s roadways in 2012, something needs to be done.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), a division of the Department of Transportation, has partnered with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to analyze the causes of truck accidents. What they found was that a major cause in truck accidents is driver behavior.

The FMCSA took a sample of 963 truck accidents from the 120,000 that occurred between April 2001 and December 2003. There were 243 fatalities and 1,654 injuries.

The study found there were three “critical events,” or something that put the commercial truck on an unavoidable path to the accident:

- The truck ran out of its lane (off the road or into another lane)
- The driver lost control of the truck
- The truck collided with the rear of another vehicle in its lane

The study defined “critical reasons” as what caused the critical events. They broke them down into three categories: the driver, vehicle, or environment.

Of the 963 accidents, 55 percent were caused by the truck as opposed to other vehicles or pedestrians. With those found to be the truck’s fault, 87 percent were due to driver behavior. The biggest reason for truck accidents was the drivers’ decisions, at 38 percent. Twenty-eight percent of accidents in the study were the result of distracted driving, which includes cell phone use or any other distraction, be it in or outside the vehicle.

The FMCSA presented its findings to Congress, including critical issues the FMSCA must focus on to reduce future commercial truck accidents.

How many more tragedies do we need before people realize the all-too-real dangers of using cell phones while driving? Last summer, a truck driver in North Berwick, Maine drove in front of an oncoming Amtrak train, something that is nearly impossible to see happening for any other reason than being distracted from your obligations to safe driving practices.

Investigators have concluded that in July, the truck driver, who was hauling a load of trash, took a phone call from his employer just before the collision that lasted for five minutes. The 35-year-old driver was also going 20 miles per hour over the speed limit, which contributed to his skidding over 200 feet into the path of the oncoming Amtrak train, causing the fiery collision that killed the truck driver and injured several other people.

Adding further evidence to the tragic and very preventable fatal accident, a driver following the truck said that he was also weaving on the road prior to the accident. Even though investigators can’t say with absolute certainty that the phone call was the cause of the accident, Police Chief Stephen Peasley put forth a logical theory that the truck driver was distracted by his phone conversation and didn’t see the crossing until it was too late. How else do you explain a 200-foot skid into the path of the train?

The Amtrak was traveling with 112 passengers aboard and witnesses said the collision sent flames as high as three stories in the air.

The National Transportation Safety Board is proposing a ban on cellphone use by commercial truck and bus drivers, including phone calls and text messaging.

“They’re attacking the wrong people,” said Lynn Murphy, a 66-year-old truck driver from St. Louis, Missouri. He says he doesn’t like using his cell phone, but that it’s necessary sometimes to call for directions or instructions related to his work.

The latest attempt by the NTSB is its most aggressive yet: it would require action by lawmakers in all 50 states.

“This is the most comprehensive recommendation we’ve made,” said NTSB chairman Deborah Hersman to the Associated Press.

While Mr. Murphy may think the wrong people are being targeted, this proposal is coming on the heels of a horrific trucking accident that left 11 people dead in Kentucky last year. It was determined that the truck driver was using a cell phone when the accident occurred.

While individual opinions within the trucking industry may vary, by and large people in leadership agree on a ban, it’s just a matter of how it should be implemented that is up for debate. Many would prefer self-regulation from trucking companies. For instance, industry lobbying group the American Trucking Association supports a legal ban on hand-held phones and texting, but not on hands-free devices, according to Boyd Stephenson, safety and security manager for the ATA.

Stephenson says there’s no science that backs the notion that hands-free devices are a distraction equivalent to hand-held devices. However, there is convincing evidence to the contrary. For instance, according to New Jersey Department of Transportation records, hands-free phones were involved in 4,530 crashes in the state, just 18 percent lower than those with hand-held devices. And that’s just one state. A recent study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found there was no difference in accident statistics between drivers using hand-held cell phones and those using a hands-free cell phone device.

There is a movement towards self-regulation. Georgia trucking company Saia bars drivers from using cellphones, hands-free devices and MP3 players while driving.

“Not only do we believe we owe that to ourselves and to our customers, but also the driving public,” said company spokeswoman Jeannie S. Jump.

A 36-year-old truck driver from Texas was arrested for driving under the influence of bath salts, according to Pennsylvania State Police. While that may sound odd too many people, in actuality bath salts are getting more and more popular as a stimulant.

While the name makes it seem harmless, they contain an amphetamine called mephedrone or MDPV. They are marketed as bath salt, but in actuality it’s a badly kept secret that they are used to get high.

“It’s a central nervous system stimulant, so it will increase your blood pressure, increase your heart rate, can cause anything from chest pain, heart attack, stroke,” says CBS News Medical Correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton. “Those are just the physical symptoms. Some psychological (symptoms include) delusions, paranoia, psychosis. They’re highly addictive, very dangerous.”

The driver was driving on State Route 6 at the time of the arrest, when he was moving an oversized load that was twice the legal weight limit… and doing all this with an invalid permit. He was placed in custody when police determined he was using bath salts.

Authorities are concerned that bath salts are a force to be reckoned with by the drug enforcement community. While there were no reported cases of bath salt abuse to  poison control centers in 2009, the next year there were 236. In 2011 that number has already been surpassed with 248 cases.

There is already a movement in the Drug Enforcement Agency to take actions to outlaw synthetic drugs. In the meantime, let’s hope that commercial truck driving accidents don’t trend upwards due to this drug’s newfound popularity.

Last January, an interim nationwide ban on texting while driving for commercial truckers went into effect. Now, the Department of Transportation is looking to make that ban permanent.

The American Trucking Associations (ATA), which represents most major trucking companies in the country, supported the interim ban. The ATA has also encouraged the Department of Transportation to take their case to the state level and to bar texting nationwide for all motorists. At the moment, 20 states have such a ban. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has already strongly intimated that the DOT will urge the remaining states to act.

"We are committed to using every resource available to eliminate the dangers of distracted driving," said Anne S. Ferro of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in a written statement.

Late last year the FMCSA also submitted a proposal to revise hour-of-service requirements for commercial truck drivers. The proposal would keep the current 34-hour-restart, which means that truck drivers can restart the clock on their allotted 60 or 70 hour work week after taking 34 hours off.

While the FMCSA is being proactive in creating better safety measures for the truck driving industry, it is being sued by the mother of a man who was killed in a trucking accident last year. She claims that even though the motor carrier had a history of safety violations, the truck driver was still allowed on the road.

There is also The Safe Drivers Act of 2011, introduced by New York Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, which would create a single national standard prohibiting the use of handheld mobile devices while driving. There would be an exception for emergencies.

Currently, if a truck or bus driver is cited for texting while driving they can be fined up to $2,750. According to The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 5,474 people died as a result of driver distraction in 2009. That makes up approximately 16 percent of all motor vehicle fatalities that year.