Articles Posted in Truck Accidents

Last December I highlighted a stealthy move by the trucking industry to have its friends in Congress slip provisions into a stop-gap funding bill that were good for the industry but bad for Oregonians and the rest of America. Not content with that victory of profits over public safety the industry is now at it again, according to The New York Times.

An editorial published in the newspaper this week warned that “Republican lawmakers have attached a long industry wish list to an appropriations bill that will be voted on in the House in the coming weeks.” Last December’s measure suspended rules governing how much rest the drivers of large trucks need to get each week. The new measure, if it becomes law, will make it very difficult for President Obama or his successor to lift those ‘temporary’ rule suspensions.

Meanwhile, other parts of the bill “would allow trucks to carry longer trailers across the country, make it harder for the Department of Transportation to require drivers get more rest before they hit the road and forbid the department from raising the minimum insurance it requires trucks and buses to carry. The insurance levels have been in effect since 1985,” according to the paper.

I want to take some time today to bring to readers’ attention an organization with an important message for Oregonians: The Coalition Against Bigger Trucks, or CABT. The CABT has won my support, because of the nuanced and thoughtful approach it takes to a problem that is especially significant in states like Oregon, where semi-truck accidents are a regular presence on our roads – especially in the rural east of our state. These trucks pose persistent problems, and have well-known safety issues. Yet left to their own devices truck owners and shippers are pressing for more and bigger trucks to be allowed on our roads, even on the small rural roads where they pose the greatest danger to other drivers.

As the organization’s website notes: “Semitrailer trucks play a vital role in the US economy and transportation system, but longer, heavier trucks endanger motorists, weaken our roads and bridges, and cost taxpayers billions of dollars every year in highway subsidies.” Simply put, CABT is not against trucks, but it is against allowing trucking companies to put ever-bigger, ever-more dangerous vehicles on our highways. It supports reasonable, common-sense regulations, something which regular readers will know I have always advocated in all of the areas covered by my practice.

The facts behind this campaign are compelling. According to CABT, federal government figures show that double and triple trailer trucks “could be expected to experience an 11-percent higher overall fatal crash rater than single-trailer combinations.” The organization notes that this figure is also backed up by private research. The group reports that larger trucks stand a significantly greater chance of tipping over because “heavier trucks tend to have a higher center of gravity because the additional weight is typically stacked vertically.”

As members of Congress worked through the weekend to agree on a spending bill to keep the federal government operating a fair of amount of media attention focused on an unrelated provision that would weaken the regulations imposed on banks in the wake of the 2008-09 financial crisis. Another, less noticed, amendment to the bill, however, is likely to have a more immediate effect on a much larger number of Americans.

According to NJ.com, language slipped into the federal spending bill at the last minute “suspends two rest rules for drivers” of semi-trucks. In other words, it makes it legal for trucking companies to demand more hours behind the wheel from already overstretched truck drivers.

Specifically, the website reports, “under federal law, truck drivers can be behind the wheel 11 hours a day, up to a maximum of 60 hours in a seven-day period. But if a trucker takes a 34-hour rest period, that seven-day calendar starts all over and he or she can drive another 60 hours during the next seven days.” The Hill, a magazine that tracks congress, notes that the new rule will “suspend a current requirement that truck drivers take breaks between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. on consecutive nights before they can work again. The measure would also remove a limit on the number of times they can declare the start of a new workday.”

The tragic death last year of two teenage girls in a semi-truck accident has spurred an online petition drive organized by their family, and an advocacy movement for tighter regulation of large trucks.

“Their lives were abruptly ended and we want to see that same thing does not happen to others,” the girls’ mother said, according to Washington DC TV station WJLA, as she delivered a petition with over 11,000 signatures on it to the Department of Transportation earlier this month. The North Carolina family was driving down an interstate highway a year ago when “their family vehicle was struck, propelling it under a tractor trailer and killing the two girls,” the TV station reports.

In response, the grieving parents organized an online petition drive seeking tighter regulation of the trucking industry (you can see, and sign, the petition here). Specifically, the couple is calling for “improved under-ride guards to prevent vehicles from sliding under trucks, and also wants to require electric monitoring devices to decrease the number of truckers driving while fatigued. They also want to increase the minimum liability insurance required for drivers,” according to WJLA. The girls’ father told reporters that installing the under-guards would cost only $20 per truck.

The Oregonian reports that a section of US-20 in Jefferson County was closed for several hours Monday in the wake of an Oregon car crash that left one person dead and several others injured. As of mid-morning one lane of the road had been reopened but police were warning motorists to expect long delays.

The fatal accident took place near Santiam Summit as the road passes through the Willamette National Forest between Corvallis and Bend. Relatively few details are available about the accident, which took place Monday morning around 9:30 am, though the newspaper does report that Life Flight helicopters were required to evacuate some of the injured. The exact type of vehicles involved in this Oregon crash have not been announced, but the location and the poor weather conditions that appear to have contributed to the accident are a reminder of the special care that trucks need to take in areas like the Willamette National Forest.

I have written frequently about the dangers that trucks face on in mountain areas. When even interstate highway travel is dangerous because of the weather and terrain it is especially important to proceed cautiously on narrow mountain roads. My past blogs on Oregon truck accidents have focused mainly on the northeast corner of our state – particularly the area around Cabbage Hill on Interstate 84. In the case of this accident, however, the newspaper’s note that “a spokesman for the ODOT said the highway has been hit with a lot of snow in the past few days” is an important reminder that the conditions on Cabbage Hill, while often extreme, are hardly unique in the more remote parts of Oregon.

The Associated Press is reporting that two people died and 20 people have been injured in a multi-car and truck accident on Interstate-75 near Detroit. The fatal road accident involved “more than two dozen vehicles including tractor-trailers,” according to the news agency, and highlights the need for caution during this winter driving season.

Though this particular accident took place half a continent away from Oregon, the circumstances are some that we are all too familiar with here in the Pacific Northwest. Be it on the congested roads around Portland or the notoriously dangerous Cabbage Hill segment of Interstate-84 in the east of the state, Oregon semi-truck accidents are a serious problem on the roads of our state and region.

In 2010 alone, the last year for which Oregon Department of Transportation data is available, there were 649 Oregon truck crashes on our roads involving semi-trailers, resulting in nearly 250 injuries and 25 deaths. As these figures indicate, the operation of large trucks calls for special care and caution on the part of drivers. Of course, semi-truck operators are not alone in this responsibility. The accident figures cited here are only a fraction of the total number of Oregon truck crashes that take place every year.