Last week, I was in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The weather was mostly nice and comfortable, but one day, a thunder storm warning was issued. The warning stated that 70 mph winds were expected, with hail the size of marbles and both lighting and thunder. Sure enough, the storm came through as predicted. As I watched the [...]
There has been an "unprecedented uptick in fatalities" associated with recycling and garbage trucks in 2019, according to the Solid Waste Association of North America. That's alarming, even as a preliminary number, because garbage trucks are already among the most dangerous heavy trucks. They are often out very early in the morning, when the streets [...]
It could be one of the largest jury verdicts in the U.S. for this type of case—a wrongful death caused by truck driver negligence. 30-year-old Sara Allison of Boise was hit head-on and killed by a semi-truck on Highway 20 near Burns, Oregon. Her husband Matthew Allison suffered life-threatening and permanent injuries. The semi-truck driver had been [...]
Last week, in Colorado, a semi-truck crashed into 28 cars and trucks along Interstate 70 killing four people and leaving several others injured. The crashed was caused by a speeding truck driver, traveling at 85 mph when his brakes failed. Families will be affected forever. Dashcam video shows semi truck speeding before fiery Colorado [...]
Since the 1990s, scientific studies on visual perception have demonstrated that people's expectations, and their ability to focus, affects what they see. It's called "inattentional blindness", and it's important for drivers to be aware of it - particularly professional drivers like truckers. Distracted driving means that a driver is not paying full attention to the single task [...]
The headlines say things like "Three siblings killed in crash with semi parked on shoulder because driver was out of hours", and "Siblings die in horrific accident with semi truck on I-80". The news coverage of the February 28 collision between a minivan and a parked big-rig largely misses the point. This fatal highway crash didn't occur because [...]
The trucking safety group Road Safe America analyzed federal crash data from 2009-2017. They found that nearly all U.S. states had increases in semi-truck crash deaths from 2009 to 2017. But Washington State has experienced the biggest percentage increase in truck crash fatalities. The five states with the largest percentage increases in truck crash deaths [...]
"Jackknife" is the term for a semi-truck trailer coming to an acute angle with the truck cab, like a small folding knife. Over the past year, I have been looking the causes of semi-truck jackknifes on Washington highways, as Coluccio Law is currently working on a truck crash case in which fatal injuries were caused [...]
Some time ago, I took the deposition of a professional truck driver and asked him to share with me his definition of a proper space cushion. In response, he said, “Space cushion – what are you talking about, something in outer space?” I thought perhaps he was just unfamiliar with the term, which I had [...]
Truckers are supposed to be professional drivers. I know this because I've worked on truck crash lawsuits for more than 30 years. Yet, the lawyers on the other side—the insurance company attorneys— almost always object. They accuse me of holding a truck driver to "too high of a standard." They also regularly object to proposing that [...]
