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. In the last year, I have been looking the causes of semi-truck jackknifes on Washington highways, as I was working on a truck crash case in which fatal injuries were caused by a [...]
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 [...]
I have been thinking a lot about route planning lately, as have many other Seattle residents and commuters. This kind of route planning is always a critical consideration for motor carriers and their commercial truck drivers. And I have seen what happens when they fail in their duty to consider and properly plan travel routes. [...]
On a clear and bright April afternoon, a semi-truck driver speeded past four warning signs, and an oversized stop sign, striking a bus with violent force. The collision killed sixteen people, most of them 16 to 21-year-old members of the Humboldt Broncos junior ice hockey team. Two more were paralyzed, and another thirteen people were [...]
It's a complicated question. As a lawyer, my first response is often "it depends." When a semi-truck tips over, it's certain that something has gone wrong. We need to determine what exactly went wrong in order to order to understand who is at fault, and what should have been done differently. When a semi-truck tips [...]
Winter Storm Diego flooded parts of California last week. It dumped rain and snow across Texas, breaking snowfall records in several cities. As it moved over the Appalachian mountains, the snow and ice knocked out power for about 300,000 people, and in some areas, left nearly two feet of snow. There were more than 700 winter storm [...]
