Atlanta Injury Attorneys Blog

This has been a difficult winter for Georgia. Unusually low temperatures and roads closed due to ice have kept many people at home for the past week. For those who were unlucky enough to have braved the icy streets, accident rates have soared. In fact, I just learned that a driver was killed yesterday in a Gwinnett County car accident on Breckinridge Boulevard, only a mile from my office in Duluth.

According to police, a northbound Saturn struck the rear of a Toyota, then a light pole. The police believe the icy roads contributed to the Duluth crash. It's easy to see how that could have happened; rear-end collisions are common on icy or otherwise slippery streets. After all, brakes can only work so well when you're sliding.

Unfortunately, Carlos Rodriguez, the driver of the Saturn that apparently slipped on the ice, died at the scene of the crash. Fortunately, the Toyota driver was unharmed.

My condolences go out to Rodriguez's family. Let's all hope the ice will be gone soon.

Last month, the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) issued a proposal to revise the federal hours-of-service (HOS) regulation for commercial truck drivers. This proposal is timely, since a court settlement agreement requires FMCSA to publish a new, final HOS rule by July 26 of this year.

The HOS regulations would retain their "34-hour restart" provision, which lets drivers restart the clock on their weekly 60 or 70 hours after taking 34 consecutive hours off-duty, under this proposal. The difference with this new proposal is the restart period would have to include two consecutive off-duty periods from midnight to 6:00 a.m., and drivers would be allowed to use this restart only once during a seven-day period.

The HOS proposal also mandates that commercial truckers complete all driving within a 14-hour workday, and that they complete all on-duty work-related activities within 13 hours to allow at least an hour break during their workday. What hasn't been decided yet is whether drivers should be limited to 10 or 11 hours of daily driving time. FMCSA currently favors a 10-hour limit, and so do I.