One of the primary purposes of this blog is to help inform the public about laws and policies relating to vehicle accidents.
Rules and regulations pertaining to the trucking industry are especially important to protecting highway drivers and passengers.
According the NHTSA:
Large trucks accounted for 7 percent of the vehicles in fatal crashes, but only 2 percent of the vehicles involved in injury crashes and 3 percent of the vehicles involved in property-damage-only crashes. Of the 3,215 large trucks involved in fatal crashes, 73 percent were combination trucks. [Vehicles : 2009]
It should come as little surprise to most people that large trucks travelling at high-speeds can present a seriously dangerous situation. That is why rules that regulate the operation of these large trucks are so vitally important.
Many believe that 2012 will be a year in which we see some major changes regarding rules related to trucking in the United States.
Over at Truck Injury Lawyer Blog, my good friend Morgan Adams provides his best guess as to what will impact safety in the trucking industry in 2012 and beyond:
- “Medical Certificates will be integrated with the CDL license. The regulation requiring this went into effect Jan 30, 2012 – unfortunately 35 states are not ready to integrate this information with the CDL. This should gradually expand as states come into compliance.
- Hours of Service (HOS) – Probably more litigation on HOS rules. The American Transportation Association (ATA) Recently filed suit in the DC circuit. Don’t expect any final rule changes in this critical area for a long time.
- National Registry of Certified DOT Medical Examiners – Final Rule is before the OMB. ME’s will be required to undergo training and be placed on a registry. Drivers will be required to use a certified doc for the DOT exam. This will likely be in place in 2013, with a rule out by summer.
- Entry Level Driver Training – Expected rule this summer requiring more training for new CDL drivers.
- EOBR’s – The 7th Circuit recently vacated the rule requiring EOBR’s for bad companies. The new rule being proposed will require EOBRs on all trucks. I expect something this year.
- Electronic Stability Control (SC) on Trucks – The Industry is behind requiring these devices, long in cars. They have figured out the savings from ESC are far greater than the cost of putting them in the truck. These have been available since 2004 for heavy trucks, a mandate is likely to issued by the summer.
- Speed Governor’s – Expect a rule this spring or summer. Probably limiting trucks to 68MPH.
- Event Data Recorder (EDR) – This is coming. Cars have EDR’s in 2012. This will standardize the data recorded after a wreck and how long (seconds saved before after the wreck).
- CSA – Tweaks will change the CSA safety program, likely making the program even more accurate in predicting the companies and drivers likely to be involved in future wrecks.
- Sleep Apnea – Formal guidance by the FMCSA expected by the summer. This is a continuing issue in the trucking industry. Please see my prior blogs on this issue.
Morgan and I are both past-presidents of the AAJ Truck Accident Lawyer Litigation Group, but he’s always been more optimistic than I have about the power and willingness of the government to confront the trucking industry and impose common-sense safety changes to prevent truck accidents. Perhaps it is because I was president during the Bush years, when most efforts to make the trucking industry safer did not find a willing partner from the White House. But make no mistake, many of these changes that Morgan writes about are common sense. These relate to things like making sure that truck drivers are medically fit to operate trucks, that they aren’t working beyond the number of hours of service that impairs their ability to drive, that they maintain good driving judgment and reaction time, and that drivers have the necessary skills to safely operate large commercial trucks.
Unfortunately, as is the case in so many areas of industry regulation, the trucking industry lobby views many of these proposed safety changes as a burden on their ability to turn a profit, instead of as an opportunity to lower the number of preventable truck accidents and save innocent lives.
One example: it was only recently that truckers were banned from using cell phones while operating commercial trucks. In Michigan, I was personally involved in a particularly tragic case where a truck driver dropped his cell phone, took his eyes off the road to reach down and pick it up, and in the process sheared a car in two. My client had been sitting in traffic. Most of him went in one direction. His legs went in the other. It was a horrible tragedy that was 100% preventable.
Hopefully, 2012 will be a year in which we see the adoption of rule changes in the trucking industry that will help make our highways safer.