Missouri Truck Accident Lawyer Blog

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board who had been examining evidence from a fatal tractor trailer crash involving a truck that left from Missouri have evidence to believe that fatigue played a major role in the cause of the accident.

The deadly truck accident took place last June near Tulsa, Oklahoma. The driver, Donald Creed, 76, worked for a Kansas City company called Associated Wholesale Grocers and departed from Springfield, Missouri on the morning of the crash.

The tractor trailer crashed into a line of cars that had stopped due to an earlier accident. Multiple vehicles were crushed and 10 people were killed, including a six-year-old boy. Physical evidence at the scene showed no signs that the driver of the big rig tried to slow down or avoid the collision.

Based on travel logs made available to the investigators, the NTSB says that Creed left in early morning hours and probably had only five hours of sleep. Creed also suffers from sleep apnea, according to media reports of the investigation. This condition can keep those who suffer from it from having a good night's sleep and leaves sufferers feeling fatigued.

NTSB officials are finalizing their investigation and will later release a full report of the crash and its causes, as well as provide recommendations to prevent this accident from occurring in the future

Photo by KMOV TV

Eastbound Interstate 70 near the Memorial Drive exit is completely shut down after a St. Louis tractor-trailer crash involving two trucks and several other vehicles.

Emergency responders and clean-up crews are still at the scene and many details are still sketchy, but we do know that the accident took place just before 11 a.m. One of the tractor trailers, which was carrying concrete tubes, partially overturned and dumped it's shipment across the roadway.

It appears that at least four other vehicles were involved in this serious truck accident as well.

No indication on whether there were any serious injuries has been given. We will keep an eye on this situation as it develops.

Changes to the weight regulations for tractor-trailers are expected to be debated by legislators and transportation officials and could lead to looser restrictions on weight limits for these commercial trucks.

The current proposal being advocated by some in the trucking industry is to raise the weight limit from the current 80,000 pounds to 97,000 pounds, an increase of more than 20 percent.

The weight restrictions exist as a safety measure to limit the amount of damage done in the event of a commercial truck accident. These vehicles are massive and, while many drivers are very skilled and accident-free, mistakes do happen. Anytime a tractor-trailer driver loses control on a highway, the potential for extensive damage and injuries exists. Tests have shown that it takes anywhere from 250 to 450 feet of hard braking for a truck driver to stop a fully loaded tractor-trailer traveling at 55 m.p.h., depending on reaction time and the condition of the brake pads.

Those advocating a higher weight limit say that while safety is of the utmost importance, the current regulations are too restrictive, especially for this economy. If trucks could carry more, companies would be more profitable. You could also see fewer trucks on the road if each individual vehicle could carry a heavier load.

Opponents to the rule change point to a number of high-profile tractor-trailer crashes and the deaths and injuries caused by truck accidents. One such incident took place in St. Louis two years ago when a tractor-trailer driver, who had become distracted by his cell phone, plowed through a line of ten cars near a construction zone before finally coming to a stop. Had the truck been carrying more weight, it would have taken longer to stop and more passenger cars would have been crushed.

The number of people killed in a traffic accident fell to 33,808 for the year 2009, which is the lowest that number has been in 60 years, according to data released by the Department of Transportation.

In addition to the overall decline in accidents, there has been a significant drop in the number of fatal tractor-trailer accidents as well. There was more than a 25 percent drop in these types of crashes when comparing last year to 2008.

Several factors are contributing to this decline in accidents. The economic recession is probably why last year's drop was so dramatic. With many companies scaling back, there were less trucks on the road and less opportunity for wrecks.

While the recession might get credit for the sharpness of the decline last year, truck accidents have been steadily falling for years due to other reasons.

New technological advances, such as collision warning systems and electronic data recorders, are becoming more commonplace and cutting into the number of crashes.

Regulations on the trucking industry are also having an effect. Since the latest Hours of Service regulations took effect, there has been a 20 percent drop in large truck crashes.

An investigation is underway to determine what caused a tractor-trailer accident on I-57 in Union County.

According to local media reports, the accident involved two tractor-trailers and no other vehicles. The two trucks involved were a 2009 Peterbilt, driven by James Woodley, 45, and a 2007 International Harvester, driven by Warren Gross, 31.

Woodley had parked his rig on the right side of southbound I-57 about five miles north of Illinois 146. Woodley had gotten out of the cabin to check his vehicle when, for some unknown reason, Gross's tractor-trailer crossed into the shoulder and collided with the left side of Woodley's trailer. Gross continued off the shoulder and eventually ended up down a ditch off the right side of the roadway.

Both rigs sustained extensive damage and the cleanup caused traffic to back up for nearly an hour.

Remarkably, neither driver was injured in this Illinois truck accident. Woodley was especially vulnerable, since he had exited his vehicle and was standing alongside it on the shoulder.

The crash is still under investigation, but we do know that Woodley's truck was legally parked on the side of the road. What is still to be determined is what caused Gross to drive into the shoulder and why he didn't see the other truck ahead of him.

The goal of CSA 2010, the new safety program from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, is to better track the performance of truck drivers and their companies and hold them accountable for their actions. One aspect is the tracking of violations given to drivers as drivers who pile up moving violations are more likely to be involved in a serious truck accident. Recently, though, some in the industry have taken issue with the way the new program counts violations.

CSA 2010 will count all moving violations against the driver, even if no actual citation is given to the driver. This means that a tractor-trailer can be pulled over for going over the speed limit, but let off with a warning, yet the incident will still be counted as a violation when it comes time to give a safety performance rating.

Representatives from the trucking industry complain that this way of tracking violations is unfair to the driver. They say that it doesn't allow for the driver to challenge a violation and amounts to a guilty until proven innocent standard.

Also, some states don't allow for law enforcement to inspect a commercial vehicle unless there is probable cause to stop the vehicle. In these states it is common for an officer to pull a truck over for speeding just a couple miles over the limit in order to have a reason to search the vehicle. No citation is given in the majority of these cases, but under the new safety rating system, these stops would count as violations.

Representatives from the FMCSA claim that the new system still gives an accurate view of a driver's performance. They also understand that different states have different laws and will account for that in their ratings. The big problem they are trying to avoid is drivers getting off the hook for violations since a pattern of negligent behavior is often a predictor of future tractor-trailer crashes.

Tractor-trailers can be intimidating. They are loud, huge vehicles weighing up to 80,000 pounds, or possibly more if regulations are not followed by the trucking company. This makes most people uncomfortable when driving near them, and with good reason. While many truck drivers handle their work professionally and have excellent safety ratings, stories of negligence leading to deadly tractor-trailer crashes are all too common.

The one thing to remember when driving around big rigs is while they have incredible size and power, they don't have the maneuverability of smaller vehicles. If you don't respect the limitations of these large vehicles, you may put yourself in a dangerous position.

For instance, if at all possible, don't ride directly in front of a tractor-trailer or cut them off unexpectedly. At full speed and full weight, it could take up to 400 feet before a truck comes to a complete stop after braking hard. You don't want to be within that distance if you can avoid it.

The length of a standard tractor trailer also makes turning a challenge. You've probably seen the warning label that says "This Vehicle Makes Wide Right Turns" a hundred times, but cars colliding with trucks making one of those turns is a daily occurrence.

Aside from limited maneuverability, truck drivers must also contend with limited visibility as well. The blind spots for tractor-trailers are huge and extend 300 feet behind the trailer and couple lanes wide on either side. There's even a blind spot in front of the truck cabin for about 20 feet due to the fact the driver and the hood of the vehicle are so high off the ground. This can lead to accidents on the road, but also with pedestrians who are walking near tractor-trailers. Our St. Louis personal injury firm recently negotiated a $2 million settlement for the family of Cathie Dolter, 61, who tragically lost her life after she was hit by a tractor trailer while walking in a parking lot.

According to the Federal Carrier Safety Administration, the majority of trucking companies have not logged on to the CSA 2010 website to check their safety performance rating data. The new system was designed to better analyze tractor trailer crash and inspection data to give a more accurate safety rating.

Some worry that the trucking industry is not invested in the new program since so few have logged in to check their rating. Over 11,000 carriers have checked their status compared to nearly 500,000 total carriers that could be affected by the new rules.

While some of the apparent lack of interest can be attributed to the fact that some of the 500,000 may not have enough data in the system to give accurate performance ratings, the numbers are much lower than regulators would hope.

The new program hopes to cut down on the number of tractor trailer injury accidents in Missouri and around the country by giving more detailed ratings of companies and drivers. It is unfortunate that so many carriers seem to have little interest in the safety program. Hopefully, as the program leaves the test phase and goes nationwide in November, more carriers will get behind the new program and commit to making our highways safer.