Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

An ongoing investigation of the deadly multivehicle pileup on both southbound and northbound stretches of I-75 in Florida has raised a couple of questions about procedure in the event foggy conditions impair highway visibility: First, why did the Florida Highway Patrol reopen the interstate to traffic after it had been closed about three hours due to blinding fog and smoke; and why did two tractor trailers stop in their lanes on the southbound stretch?

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As of January 30, 2012, a new federal mandate requires all commercial driver’s license holders to provide information to their state driver licensing agency regarding the type of commercial vehicle operations they work for or expect to work for. The new federal requirement is intended to make U.S. highways and roads safer by restricting certain drivers who may be considered medically unsafe.

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Survivors of a deadly multi-vehicle pileup on Interstate 75 south of Gainesville, Florida, blamed a blinding mixture of fog and smoke from a brush fire for the crash that killed 10 people and injured 18 others, some of them seriously. Much like the deadly December 29 pileup on I-10 in New Orleans, the Florida crashes involved a number of commercial vehicles, including six tractor trailers and what appeared to be a tour bus. At least a dozen other cars were involved in the crash.

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The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has announced its final rule on hours-of-service (HOS) regulations that govern work and rest periods for commercial truck drivers. Trucking companies and drivers have until July 1, 2013, to comply with the rule changes, which Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said “will help prevent fatigue-related truck crashes and save lives.”

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The first lawsuit against a commercial carrier blaming sleep apnea for contributing to a fatal highway crash was settled earlier this month in Texas. Wanda Lindsay, who became an activist against sleep apnea in the trucking industry after her husband was killed in a May 2010 crash, settled with Celadon for $3 million.

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A harrowing crash near the Southern California town of Buellton Thursday left a tractor trailer driver dead and three people in a mangled BMW hanging perilously over the side of a bridge on a mountainous stretch of Highway 101.

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Personal-injury and wrongful-death lawsuits continue to pile up against John Davis Trucking Company of Battle Mountain, Nevada, after one of its trucks ran a crossing gate and slammed into the side of a double-decker Amtrak train June 24, killing five people and injuring 20 others.

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A report in Monday’s Baltimore Sun exposes how easy it is for some motor carriers with a long history of safety violations and crashes to reincarnate under a new name and business license after authorities shut them down. These are the companies that repeatedly demonstrate a blaring disregard for the law, take advantage of regulatory loopholes, and give the trucking industry an undeservedly bad reputation.

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Considering all the efforts the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is giving to restricting hours-of-service rules and drivers with sleep apnea in the name of safety, the loopholes in federal laws that allow unsafe commercial drivers with a history of violations to stay behind the wheel seem all the more outrageous.

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A Kentucky trucking company must pay $7 million in damages for hiring an unqualified driver and pushing him to drive an excessively long route, which resulted in a crash that killed another commercial truck driver, a U.S. District Court jury in Harrison, Arkansas, ordered.

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