Atlanta Injury Attorneys Blog

In the recent past, the Atlanta Injury Attorneys Blog has posted on several tragic accidents involving families traveling across our beautiful country. The Atlanta-Journal Constitution carried an Associated Press report this past week on another deadly crash involving a semi-trailer and a passenger van carrying a family. As a Georgia truck accident lawyer, I have represented many families through the medical and legal aspects of major collisions such as this one.

The accident itself included a series of events that are not uncommon, but together ended in seven deaths. According to the report, ten extended family members were traveling on an Indiana Interstate on their way to a funeral. Among the passengers were three children and a newborn infant.

The minivan was traveling on the Interstate and struck a deer. After this occurred, a semi-trailer struck the mini-van from the rear. Due to the collision with the deer, the van slowed down considerably and was possibly stopped in its lane.

It was reported that the truck was traveling at the speed limit and struck the van from behind, hitting it so hard that portions of the van were crumpled under the truck's tires. The driver was not under the influence and was released from the hospital after being treated for minor injuries. He has not been charged in the crash. But the nature of the accident could lead to a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit by the family, depending on the facts involved and the familial relationships of those killed in the crash.

Apparently, three passengers survived the crash and were taken to the hospital. There were 10 total occupants in the minivan and not one of them was wearing a seatbelt. The infant was in a car seat that had not been fastened to the seat. As a result of the crash, the truck and the van ended up in the center median and due to the severity of the crash, traffic was stopped in both directions for many hours.

All drivers should observe the defensive driving rules that require that vehicles allow sufficient space in front of them so that they can stop or slow down in the event of a situation like this. More and more we see drivers failing to leave space. Perhaps if the driver of this truck allowed sufficient room to stop - he would have been able to avoid rear-ending the van.

It takes longer for trucks to stop under any conditions. They need more room and more time to come to a full stop when traveling at high speeds. Even if this driver was traveling at a safe distance, he was not able to stop in time to avoid hitting the van. He might have not seen it in time or expected it to be there. Georgia motor vehicle drivers must obey rules related to safe driving distances and related safety concerns.

If you are traveling on a highway and a truck is tailgating you, move over cautiously and let the truck pass if at all possible. Trucks are required to travel at safe distances which can also depend on weather conditions in which even more space is sometimes required. The law of physics accounts for stopping distance and can be summed up in terms of the mass of a truck and its velocity translating into the kinetic energy that happens when vehicles collide.

At a recent forum of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, experts spoke about the dangers of trucks and passenger vehicle collisions. Although "the fatal crash rate for large trucks has declined significantly during the past decade, even though the number of miles driven has increased by 36 percent. Despite these improvements, there are nearly 400,000 crashes involving large trucks in the US each year resulting in about 5,000 fatalities." The experts attribute about 70 percent of fatalities are due to other vehicles sharing the road with trucks and the need for more care around large trucks.

If you or a family member have been seriously injured or worse in a Georgia semi truck accident, there is a dedicated local legal professional ready to assist you. In a Gwinnett County tractor-trailer accident lawsuit, you may be entitled to recoup expenses for medical care, hospital stays, lost salary and work hours. At the Law Offices of P. Charles Scholle, P.C., we have decades of experience helping tractor-trailer accident victims get back on their feet and on with their lives. To find out how we can help you, contact us today for a free, confidential consultation at one of our convenient offices in Decatur, Duluth, Buckhead or the Perimeter.

By now, we all know that seat belts save lives and that "click it or ticket" are mainstays of federal and state government and law enforcement efforts to encourage families to buckle up. In my representation of many serious motor vehicle accident victims and their families, as a Gwinnett County catastrophic injury lawyer, in my view, anything that can reduce deaths and injuries is vitally important.

But for some reason, drivers and passengers are still yet to have learned to buckle up every time they get into a motor vehicle. It is never easy to reconcile human behavior with safety measures that are available to us, but that we do not use. So when it comes to seat belt use, the failure to use a seatbelt even when the dashboard in a modern vehicle is telling us to buckle up, is puzzling and sometimes tragic.

The National Highway Safety Administration touts its "Click It or Ticket (CIOT)" campaign as the most successful seat belt enforcement campaign in the history of our country and says it has helped to create the "highest national seat belt usage rate of 85 percent." The State of Georgia has had its own successful Click It or Ticket campaign and continues to encourage us to buckle up.

The risk of injury or death are greatly reduced when using a seat belt. These simple devices save lives and make otherwise might be deadly crashes, survivable. Although the Click It or Ticket campaigns have created a very compliant public, teens, pick up truck drivers and men between 18 and 34 years of age are less likely to use their seat belts.

The death of a Norcross High School student last month has left many of us saddened and stunned. In the tragic accident, a Gwinnett County resident and high school basketball player, who was enrolled in honors and Advanced Placement classes, and three of his family members were killed in a single vehicle car wreck in Florida last month.

The young man's dad who was driver of the Chevrolet Tahoe tragically crashed in a single vehicle accident on I-75 near Ocala, Florida, the SUV traveled across several southbound lanes, overturned a number of times and ended up on its roof. Reports say that during this crash, six of the eight people inside the SUV were ejected in the crash. Only one person was wearing a seat belt -- the driver who was the young man's father. Speed was apparently not a factor so it is not clear what caused the vehicle to leave its lane.

Could some or all of the people who died in this crash be alive now had they been wearing their seat belts? We will never know the answer to this question. But this accident is important for all of us to pause and pay attention -- make sure that you do not drive or ride in a vehicle without a seat belt.

The Norcross High School community has suffered an enormous loss and it is impossible to imagine the sorrow that this family is experiencing. In addition to those killed in the accident, others were injured. Our hearts go out to the family and the school community.

Please buckle up every time you get into your car or other motor vehicle. You could save your life or the life of someone you love.

If you have been injured in an automobile or other accident, please contact my law firm to arrange for a free consultation with me on matters ranging from truck accidents, motorcycle crashes, personal injury, wrongful death and estate administration. We have offices throughout the Atlanta area in Duluth, Buckhead, the Perimeter and Decatur. for your convenience.

As a Georgia truck accident lawyer, I know it is critically important for the public's safety that truck companies and drivers follow the rules that govern how long a driver is permitted to stay on the road, among many other important guidelines. Serious truck accidents, injuries and even deaths are often caused by driver fatigue.

What many might not know is that there are both federal and Georgia state guidelines on precisely how long a driver can be on the road. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is responsible for enforcing the regulations that provide clear guidelines as to the length of time that truck drivers, such as those driving 18 wheelers, are allowed to drive. These regulations are intended to make sure that drivers do not get into their trucks and out on to the nation's highways when they are fatigued and are intended for the public's safety.

The provisions for hours of service are found in Part 395 of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. This agency is part of the United States Department of Transportation.

Drivers of large tractor-trailers are limited to how long they may drive. The hours-of-service regulations apply to drivers of commercial motor vehicles. There are many specific ways to determine whether a vehicle is a commercial motor vehicle.

In general, under the federal laws, a commercial motor vehicle is a truck or a tractor-trailer that is engaged in what is called interstate commerce and has an actual weight or a weight rating of 10,001 or more pounds or carries hazardous waste in a quantity that requires a hazardous waste placard. Other commercial vehicles include those that carry a certain number of passengers.

Hours-of-service regulations focus on when and how long a truck driver is permitted to drive and the total number of hours that a driver can work before that driver is no longer permitted to drive. There are certain maximums that apply to this which are called the 14-hour duty limit, the 60/70-hour duty limit and the 11-hour driving limit. The 60/70-hour duty limit is based on a seven or eight day period and restricts the total number of hours a driver has driven or worked in these time frames. The 60/70-hour rule is quite detailed and is found in sections 395.3(b) and (c).

There are some exceptions, but in general tractor-trailer drivers are only allowed to be on duty for 14 consecutive hours and once they have reached this time limit they must not drive again for another 10 consecutive hours. The 14-hour limit includes lunch or nap breaks. In addition, a truck driver cannot drive more than 11 hours during that 14-hour time frame. Once this limit has been reached, the driver must take off for another 10 hours.

This is an important issue in driver fatigue truck crashes. In an injury case involving a large truck that would be governed by these regulations, it is important to find out how long the driver has been driving. As an experienced trucking crash lawyer, I learn this by securing driving logs and other information from the truck driver, the trucking company and its records.

Trucking accidents can cause very serious injuries or death. As a Gwinnett County, Georgia truck accident attorney with offices throughout the Atlanta metro region, I handle truck accidents and truck injury cases in all surrounding cities and counties, including Duluth, Fulton County, Grayson, Gwinnett County and more. Please contact our law firm for a free confidential consultation at our main Gwinnett County law office, or at our offices in Decatur, the Perimeter and Buckhead.

The Atlanta Injury Attorneys Blog has often posted on the serious dangers of bus and truck accidents and the major injuries that can result from crashes involving these vehicles. My Atlanta personal injury law practice is dedicated to helping people who have suffered injuries in serious motor vehicle accidents, including those involving large trucks and buses.

Last week in Nebraska, 41 people were taken to the hospital for injuries when a bus crashed into an overturned semitrailer that had drifted and overcorrected, causing it to become imbalanced and overturn. Thankfully, many of these injuries were minor, but others were not. Serious injuries often result from accidents involving trucks and buses, not to mention a collision of two of these large vehicles.

The cause of the accident is under investigation. The accident occurred near Omaha at about 2 a.m. in the morning. The bus was traveling to Denver. A semitrailer had overturned and was in a lane of traffic when a second truck came along and clipped it.
Then the bus collided with the overturned tractor-trailer.

The passenger accounts are chilling -- the aftermath was chaotic and the impact frightening. Some passengers report that the driver was talking on the phone at times during the trip and perhaps prior to the accident. Investigators are looking into this, but this has not been confirmed.

According to the report in the Associated Press, the bus company does not allow personal cell phone calls. However, drivers are permitted to speak with dispatchers and other drivers and terminals while they are in transit.

Sadly, the bus driver was in critical condition after the accident and the driver of the overturned semitrailer was in fair condition. One passenger was in serious condition and two others were in fair condition.

The bus company involved apparently has had no record of safety violations in the past two years. The driver was very experienced, had ten years of bus driving and nearly one million miles driven. Unlike many buses, the bus that was involved in this crash was new and had seat belts.

Mandatory seat belts in buses have long been recommended by the US Department of Transportation, but the recommendation has not yet been fully implemented. A proposed rule in accordance with NHTSA's 2007 Motorcoach Safety Plan and DOT's 2009 Departmental Motorcoach Safety Action Plan, has been issued by NHTSA which would amend the Federal motor vehicle safety standard (FMVSS) on occupant crash protection.

This proposed rule would require lap/shoulder seat belts for each passenger seating position in new motorcoaches. The proposal also requires a lap/shoulder belt for the motorcoach and large school bus driver's seating positions, which currently are required to have either a lap or a lap/shoulder belt. It is not clear whether the driver in this crash had a seat belt on or if it would have made a difference given the severity of the collision.

If you have been seriously injured in a truck, bus or other highway accident, please contact the Law Offices of P. Charles Scholle, PC. Our law firm helps clients secure the financial and medical recovery they need after a traumatic event in their lives.

We provide a free consultation to evaluate your matter in one of our convenient Atlanta area offices, and if we represent you, we provide supportive legal representation to you and your family.