Articles Posted in Semi-Trailer Truck Accidents

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In August 2008, 30-year-old Kevin Harrison was working for Norfolk Southern Railway when he was exposed to acid fumes from a leaking barrel at Norfolk’s rail yard in Hammond, Ind.  The acid had been shipped from Michigan in an inter-modal container owned by the defendant K Line America, which is a subsidiary of a Japanese company.

One day earlier, the driver for the defendant trucking company, Mason Dixon Intermodal, had selected the K Line container from those available at the Mason & Dixon’s Lines Inc. yard in Dearborn, Mich.

The Mason Dixon Intermodal driver inspected the interior of the container and then drove it to the loading dock of Beaver Packaging & Crating, where Beaver employees loaded 40- to 55-gallon polymer drums filled with 30 percent strength acetic acid into the inter-modal container. 

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 A Lake County, Ill., jury returned a verdict of $257,800 for Joseph Briski, a truck driver who tripped and fell in a pothole after parking his trailer-truck at National Gypsum’s plant in Waukegan, Ill.  This incident occurred on Feb. 2, 2008.  Briski was walking toward the rear of his truck to undo the air lines when he fell.  He landed on both knees. 

Briski contended that the parking lot in which truck drivers park their tractors and trailers was filled with numerous potholes and depressions hidden by snow and slush.

Briski, 49, suffered an acute rupture of the left quadriceps tendon and fractured his kneecap. The quadriceps repair surgery two months after the incident failed. It resulted in permanent chronic quadriceps rupture, which is a very disabling condition; permanent significant impairment of leg extensions; inability to continue working as a truck driver and potential future left knee arthritis. 

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Officials at the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) believe that U.S. truck and bus regulators are not catching on to serious safety hazards before fatal crashes occur.  The NTSB has stated that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has known about deficiencies in bus company practices before some fatal crashes, but the agency took no steps to correct them.  The FMCSA has known about these deficiencies before the fatal accidents took place, but did not take any action to shut down carriers until afterward.  The NTSB chairman said in a statement that some of these cases are under investigation by the agency. 

The report said that there has been a long period of time — maybe years — that the FMCSA has chosen not to take action against some bus companies despite repeated safety citations. The report also reinforced the fact that the FMCSA did nothing to take some of the dangerous buses out of service and off the road. 

The chairman of the NTSB, Deborah Hersman, said in a statement that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration needs to crack down before more deadly crashes occur, not just after high-visibility events.  Ms. Hersman also said that poor performing bus companies were on the FMCSA’s radar for safety violations, but they did not take any action and allowed these bus companies to continue operating.

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The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has stated that U.S. truck and bus regulators are not taking steps to prevent serious safety hazards before fatal crashes.  The NTSB claims that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has known about deficiencies in bus company practices before some fatal crashes but took no steps to correct them.  The government agency, FMCSA, has known about these deficiencies before the deadly fatal accidents, but did not take any action to shut down carriers until afterwards.  The National Transportation Safety Board chairman said in a statement that some are under investigation by the agency. 

The report said that there has been a long period of time, maybe years, that the FMCSA has chosen not to take action against some bus companies despite repeated safety citations.  The report also reinforced the fact that the FMCSA did nothing to take some of the buses off the road. 

The chairman of NTSB, Deborah Hersman, said in a statement that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration needs to crack down before crashes occur, not just after high visibility events.  Ms. Hersman also stated that poorly performing bus companies were on the FMCSA’s radar for violations, but the federal regulators didn’t take any action and allowed these bus companies to continue operating.

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The number of highway deaths in the United States in 2012 rose to 33,561.  This was an increase of more than 1,000 deaths from 2011.  This data was provided preliminarily by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

The same report of data from NHTSA revealed that the number of deaths of occupants in large trucks and semi-trailer trucks increased substantially for the third consecutive year.  The increase was 8.9% in 2012 from the previous year. 

According to NHTSA information, there were 697 large truck occupant deaths that occurred in 2012. That was a 20% increase in fatalities of large truck occupants from 2011. 

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