Articles Posted in Motor Vehicle Cases

The L.A. Times  has written a major story on safety problems at U-Haul.

An excerpt:  "U-Haul, the nation’s largest provider of rental trailers, says it is "highly conservative" about safety. But a yearlong Times investigation, which included more than 200 interviews and a review of thousands of pages of court records, police reports, consumer complaints and other documents, found that company practices have heightened the risk of towing accidents."

And here is an interesting tidbit: "JOHN ABROMAVAGE, U-Haul’s engineering director, once testified that as a witness for the company in some 200 cases, he had never seen an accident he regarded as U-Haul’s fault."

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Association recently released a Large Truck Crash Causation Study in response to a federal law that  required the organization "to determine the causes of, and contributing factors to, crashes involving commercial motor vehicles."

From the Executive Summary:

"A nationally representative sample of large truck fatal and injury crashes was investigated during 2001 to 2003 at 24 sites in 17 States. Each crash involved at least one large truck and resulted in at least one fatality or injury. Data were collected on up to 1,000 elements in each crash. The total sample involved 967 crashes, which included 1,127 large trucks, 959 non-truck motor vehicles, 251 fatalities, and 1,408 injuries.
An action or inaction by the drivers of the truck or the other vehicles involved were important reasons leading to crashes in a large majority of the cases. Driver recognition and decision errors were the type of driver mistakes coded by crash investigators or law enforcement officials most often for the trucks and passenger vehicles. Truck drivers, however, were coded less frequently for both driving performance errors and non-performance problems (e.g., asleep, sick, incapacitated) than passenger vehicle drivers. In crashes between trucks and passenger vehicles, driving too fast for conditions and fatigue were important factors cited for both drivers. However, fatigue was coded twice as often for passenger vehicle drivers and speeding more often for truck drivers.
Brake problems were coded for almost 30 percent of the trucks but only 5 percent of the passenger vehicles. Roadway problems were present in 16 percent of the two-vehicle cases, and adverse weather conditions were present in approximately 13 percent of the crashes. Interruption in the traffic flow (previous crash, work zone, rush hour congestion, etc.) was coded in almost 25 percent of the two-vehicle crashes."

Some people have found a way to turn a police chase case into a Sec. 1983 action.  It was always tough – and it just got tougher.

Here is the issue as stated by Justice Scalia:  "We consider whether a law enforcement official can, consistent with the Fourth Amendment, attempt to stop a fleeing motorist from continuing his public-endangering flight by ramming the motorist’s car from behind. Put another way: Can an officer take actions that place afleeing motorist at risk of serious injury or death in order to stop the motorist’s flight from endangering the lives of innocent bystanders?"

The bottom line:  "The car chase that respondent initiated in this case posed a substantial and immediate risk of serious physical injury to others; no reasonable jury could conclude otherwise. [Officer] Scott’s attempt to terminate the chase by forcing respondent off the road was reasonable, and Scott is entitled to summary judgment."

What causes truck wrecks?  According to Ron Miller, a trial lawyer in Maryland, the Federal Motor Carry Safety Administration’s 2006 report shows  there are approximately 141,000 truck crashes every year. In 77,000 of these truck accidents – more than half – fault was attributed to the truck driver.

Ron’s post at The Maryalnd Injury Lawyer Blog lists the top ten causes of the wrecks caused by truckers as follows:

1. Prescription drug use (26%)

The Truck Safety Coalition has released data showing the number of fatal truck crashes by state.  Tennessee had 156 fatal crashes in 2005 and 717 in the five-year period from 2001-2005.  By comparison, Alabama had 122 fatal crashes in 2005 (706 in  five-years), Kentucky had 124 (596), Arkansas had 116 (531), Mississippi had 91 (445) and Georgia had 229 (1162).

Tennessee had 2.62 fatal crashes per 100,000 people, the 15th highest rate in the country.  Wyoming was the worst at 6.09.  Rhode Island had the best rate at .09.   Eight states in the Southeast were amoung the twenty states with the highest death rates.

Another 114,000 persons were injured in truck crashes in 2005.

The New York Times did a great piece on the regulation of the trucking industry yesterday.

One blurb:  "In loosening the standards [applicable to the trucking industry], the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration was fulfilling President Bush’s broader pledge to free industry of what it considered cumbersome rules. In the last six years, the White House has embarked on the boldest strategy of deregulation in more than a generation. Largely unchecked by the Republican-led Congress, federal agencies, often led by former industry officials, have methodically reduced what they see as inefficient, outdated regulations and have delayed enforcement of others."

If you are involved in trucking litigation you will enjoy this five-page article.

Side airbags work.  That is the conclusion of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

A recent study reports that "Side airbags that protect people’s heads are reducing driver deaths in cars struck on the near (driver) side by an estimated 37 percent. Airbags that protect only the chest and abdomen but not the head are reducing deaths by 26 percent. "

According to the study, if every passenger vehicle would have side airbags with head protection 2000 lives would be saved a year.

The American Trucking Associations has petitioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to limit the maximum speed of large trucks at the time of manufacture to no more than 68 miles per hour.  ATA also petitioned the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to prohibit the tampering or adjustment of the speed limiting devices, known as speed limiters (or governors), to greater than 68 miles per hour.

Research indicates that speed is a more significant factor in crashes involving trucks than any other factor that currently receives a larger proportion of government attention and resources.

Here is a copy of the Rulemaking Petition.

Everyone knows that auto death rates are decreasing.  But why?

This study tells us that the reason is safer autos.  Issued by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the study says that "an increasingly dangerous traffic environment has been offset since 1994 only because people are driving vehicles that are more protective…."

The press release indicates that  the full report, "Trends over time in the risk of driver death: what if vehicle designs had not improved?" by C.M. Farmer and A.K. Lund will be published in the journal, Traffic Injury Prevention, later this year.