On a warm and sunny September afternoon, a semi-truck driver was gazing out at the Washington countryside when he slammed into the back of a car at nearly 60 mph. The truck driver never touched the brakes. That crash killed Garrett Underland. He was just 15 years old. https://www.coluccio-law.com/garrett-underland/ Andy Sommer was turning down the [...]
By now, you have probably seen images of the terrible collision between a bus and a semi-truck on a New Mexico highway last week. A Greyhound bus carrying almost 50 people was headed west along I-40. A semi-truck headed east on I-40 swerved across the median and slammed into the bus. Video shows incredible [...]
Off-tracking: Rear wheels take a different, shorter path than the front wheels when the semi truck is turning or cornering. We might think of it as "cutting the corner" of a turn. I have seen this before, with a client who was run over by the back wheels of a semi-truck turning the corner. In this case, [...]
Whether you are for or against the legalization of marijuana—and I am not taking a position here— no one can dispute that driving a car after the use of marijuana is dangerous. Which means it's even more dangerous to drive a big rig while under the influence of marijuana. How do you identify a stoned [...]
Micheal Belzer, an economics professor at Wayne State University, recently published a study showing a strong correlation between truck driver pay and road safety. In this article, Truck drivers are overtired, underworked, and underpaid, he explains his findings. The data suggest that economic factors affecting drivers contribute significantly to truck crashes. A link between truck driver pay and safety [...]
The number of road incidents involving driver drowsiness is close to eight times higher than the federal estimate, based on a recent study by AAA. Analyzing data from more than 700 dashcams and 3593 drivers, researchers looked at the 3 minutes prior to a crash. By tracking eyelid closures, they found that 9.5% of all crashes involved drowsiness. [...]
It is undisputed: there is a commercial truck driver shortage across the U.S. The Trump administration is pushing forward on a pilot program that would allow people as young as 18 years old to drive commercial trucks. The pilot program will train young people with military experience; it is laying the groundwork for lowering the minimum [...]
People think of the Pacific Northwest as a rain-drenched forest. But driving the high-desert climate of eastern Oregon and Washington is a very different experience. This is I-84. It is the main route through Eastern Oregon, and into Idaho—especially for semi-trucks. On a November afternoon in Eastern Oregon, meteorologists predicted wind gusts at 55-60 mph. The wind kicked up dust [...]
Earlier this month, a Texas jury issued an 89.6 million dollar verdict against Werner Enterprises, a Nebraska-based trucking company. The case involved a 2014 crash that killed a 7-year-old, paralyzed a 12-year-old girl, and resulted in a traumatic brain injury for a teenager. The verdict has been controversial because of the unusual facts of the [...]
No one was injured. No other vehicles were involved. But 40,000 pounds of feathers were dumped onto I-5 in Federal Way around 3 a.m. when semi-truck driver caused a roll-over crash. https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/999268630029156353 The truck driver told a local reporter that he had fallen asleep. "I drank coffee and took one of those pills that had [...]
