According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (January 2009), although trucks make up less than 4% of all vehicles on United States roadways, they are involved in 12% of all motor vehicle fatalities.  Fatalities per miles driven are 56% higher for trucks than for all motor vehicles combined.  In 2007 (the most recent year for which complete data is available) 4,808 people died in collisions with trucks, 302 of those alone in the State of Florida, and 86,245 were seriously injured.  Not surprisingly, the vast majority of people killed in accidents with trucks are the drivers and passengers of the cars that get hit.  You can see more statistics here.

According to the American Association for Justice, most of these trucks are in serious violation with federal safety standards - overloading trucks with weights that exceed the limits, allowing untrained or unqualified drivers behind the wheel, even those with a drug or alcohol dependence, failing to maintain bald tires and defective brakes, and salary systems that encourage truck drivers to exceed speed limits and maximum driving hours.  When trucking companies violate safety standards to cut corners and maximize profits; often times the result is a fatal accident.

Cutting Corners to Maximize Profits

On October 21, 2007, The Ocala Star-Banner’s Fred Hiers published the article “In Drive for Profits, Trucking Company Routinely Puts Overweight Rigs on the Road” which details the investigation into companies in that region who routinely overload trucks in an attempt to cut costs.  The article discusses Florida truck driver Vivian Bernard who complained to his bosses at Benton’s Express that his truck was being routinely overloaded for his weekly trip between Ocala and Gainesville. The illegally added weight put undue stress on the tires, but also allowed Benton’s to carry more freight for lower costs. Bernard’s bosses ignored his complaints, and Bernard suffered a tire blowout.  The subsequent investigation found that Benton’s routinely faked paperwork to try and get away with illegally overloaded trucks.  Truck accidents occur for a variety of reasons, but many are preventable, and often are a direct result of trucking companies violating safety standards to cut corners and maximize profits. The average profit margin for trucking companies is very low, and nine out of ten start-up companies go out of business in a little over one year.

Cutting corners is a relatively low risk, less than 1% of all trucks fall under the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) inspection event.  In addition, insurance requirements have not changed since The Motor Carrier Act of 1980 when Congress set the minimum level of insurance for tractor trailers to $750,000.  If the minimum insurance standards had been adjusted for inflation they would now be $2 million. Large trucking companies will often carry more than the minimum level of coverage, but smaller companies are more likely to carry the bare minimum.  However, given the fact that 87% of the companies in violation of safety standards have fleets of 10 trucks or less, and the deadly nature of truck accidents, which can destroy the lives of many people in one instance - this minimum level is clearly inadequate. Injured victims are now frequently forced to turn to Medicare/Medicaid to cover the costs of devastating accidents.

Safety Violations

Researchers at the American Association for Justice examined over a million lines of data on the entire U.S. trucking industry obtained from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). The results are shocking.  As of April 2009, there were more than 28,000 trucking companies, representing more than 200,000 trucks, operating on U.S. roads with safety violations.  And there is every reason to believe this is just the tip of the iceberg because a Government Accountability Office (GAO-06-102) report found that “nearly one-third of commercial motor vehicle crashes that states are required to report to the federal government were not reported, and those that were reported were not always accurate, timely, or consistent.”  Data on all 28,274 companies can be found online and is broken down by state.

In June 2009, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) conducted comprehensive roadside inspections across the nation. The dates of the inspection were announced four months ahead of time and given publicity within the trucking industry, so companies had plenty of warning to fix potential problems. Even so, more than one in five trucks failed inspection and were taken out of service. 

Defective brakes accounted for more than half of all vehicle violations. For drivers, more than 1% were found to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs. If these results were to be extrapolated to the entire trucking industry, there would be at least 38,500 truck drivers under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and 1.9 million unsafe trucks on the road. 

Reincarnation of Companies in Violations of Safety Standards

In August 2008, a bus carrying 55 Vietnamese-American Catholics to a religious festival blew a tire on a Texas highway. The bus hit the guard rail and crashed. Seventeen people were killed. The blown tire had been retreaded, in violation of federal safety standards. The bus owner, Iguala BusMex Inc., was a new company awaiting approval for a federal license. Its incorporation papers would later show that it had the same owner and address as Angel Tours Inc., a company that had been forced to take its vehicles off the road after multiple violations.  This case highlighted a frightening fact - companies that are found in violation of safety standards often simply change their names and continue operating as before. A 2009 GAO report found that more than 1,000 trucking companies were “reincarnations” of prior companies that had been fined or found in violation.

Truck Safety Needs to be Improved

According to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), federal agencies need to adopt several common sense safety improvements. These include such common-sense measures as preventing truck drivers from putting trucks with mechanical problems on the road, and ensuring drivers are qualified and medically able to drive.  In addition, the FMCSA has developed a series of projects highlighting smart technology that can enhance safety, from collision mitigation systems to brake monitoring systems.

Trucks are vital for the U.S. economy. More than 9 million trucks travel our roads, as part of 580,000 trucking companies, and hauling nearly 70% of all freight transported within the United States.   However, trucks are inherently dangerous - they are far larger and heavier than cars, take longer to stop, and cause much more damage in collisions. It is important that our reliance on trucks, and the trucking industry’s need to keep costs down, do not eclipse the need to maintain the highest possible safety standards.  The issue of truck safety needs to be highlighted in an effort to improve safety and protect the lives of thousands of innocent drivers. 

If you would like to read more about Semi Truck, Tractor-Trailer, 18-Wheeler, or Commerical Truck Accident Cases in Orlando/Central Florida or if you or a loved one has been the victim of a catastrophic trucking accident, please contact our attorneys at the Kane Law Firm either by phone (407) 644-5262 or email Info@KaneInjury.com.