Personal Injury Law

Dangerous Trucking Regulations Enacted

Our truck accident lawyers regularly investigate and pursue cases in which heavy truck drivers cause serious injury and death by driving while fatigued. The pressure on drivers to drive in this condition is enormous. The more miles driven the more a driver or company can earn.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration controls the limits on the hours a driver can drive in any one period.

Last Thursday, four public safety advocacy groups, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, Public Citizen, the Truck Safety Coalition and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters filed a petition for reconsideration with the administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), requesting that the federal government reconsider a seriously flawed regulation that can compel professional truck drivers to work and drive in dangerously fatigued condition.

In the final rule published on Nov. 19, FMCSA ignored two court decisions that have been issued since 2003. The first decision found that the agency had not adequately taken driver health into consideration. The second decision vacated the two provisions of FMCSA?s revised 2005 final rule that raised the limits for daily and weekly driving and on-duty hours. Although courts have twice ordered the agency to reconsider the rule, FMCSA has re-issued virtually the same rule after each court order.

The new rule, which will take effect on Jan. 19, the last day the current administration is in office, allows truckers to drive up to 11 hours in a single shift, while driving 88 hours or working 98 hours over eight consecutive days.

FMCSA disregarded scores of studies conducted over more than 30 years showing that this increased working and driving schedule will lead to exhausted truck drivers who literally can fall asleep while driving. This new rule threatens the safety of everyone traveling on the roadways of the United States.

The petition asks FMCSA to reconsider the regulation based on numerous errors and misrepresentations of research findings clearly showing that much longer working and driving hours will inevitably produce severely fatigued drivers who also can suffer serious health problems from excessively long working hours.

Full post as published by Georgia Injury Lawyer Blog on December 24, 2008 (boomark / email).