Truck Accident Law Videos
We have taken our knowledge of truck accident litigation and created instructional videos demonstrating how to handle trucking cases. These videos are designed to provide an overview and general explanation of the different issues encountered in truck accident litigation. If you have a specific question about trucking law, do not hesitate to contact us. We pride ourselves in always being available and willing to help other lawyers in any way we can.
Taking the Deposition of the Trucking Company's Corporate Representative
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- Taking the Deposition of the Trucking Company's Corporate Representative
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- Taking the Deposition of the Trucking Company's Corporate Representative (00:02:08) Joe Fried: Other than deposing the actual tractor trailer driver involved in a collision, the probably most important deposition in any tractor trailer case is the deposition of the corporate representative of the tractor trailer company. Often times, it's the safety director that's deposed. Now, not all safety directors are made the same. In smaller companies, you'll often times find the people with the title Safety Director who also may have the same time hold the job of Maintenance Director or Receptionist for that matter. It just all depends on the size of the company. Other companies will have Safety Directors responsible for forty and fifty people in a safety related department that also includes, when that's the case, it often includes compliance for Federal regulations. But to prepare and take this deposition properly, require a tremendous amount of getting ready before hand. Preparation essentially encompasses getting ready like it was going to be a trial. You have to know all the documents. You have to have your theories already in place. You have to understand what it is that you're trying to show the driver did wrong and why it is that the trucking company shares in that responsibility other than that they're merely the employer. Trucking companies under the Federal regulations are required to train their drivers and to have systems in place to ensure that their drivers are reasonably safe. Particularly, in areas of alcohol and drug use and fatigue and in driving safety. In other words, defensive driving. So, understanding the systems that these people use and these companies use is critically important. Studying and understanding how the documents fit into these types of depositions is critically important. Already talking to your experts and having a plan in place before you go take the deposition is critically important.
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- Underride Collisions with Tractor Trailers
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- Underride Collisions With Tractor-Trailers Length: 00:02:05 Michael Goldberg: There are a number of different types of trucking cases. One type of trucking case is the underride. And you see the photo behind me is a classic underride situation. It occurs when there's a trailer cross the roadway and the passenger vehicle with your client in it, rides up under the trailer. There are a number of different issues that occur in these kinds of cases. First of all, what was the visibility of the tractor trailer? The trailer is required to have retro-reflective taping along the side of it. So one thing that you have to investigate is whether or not there was the appropriate retro-reflective taping that was there on the trailer. The defendants always have the same defense. That is, it's a large trailer, how could the person not have seen it across the roadway? However, trucking companies know that tractor trailers often blend into the surroundings and so they have to be careful when they pull out into the roadway. At night, a tractor trailer can look very much like a bridge that someone's used to. In the case that we have right here, a tractor trailer was across the roadway in the fog, so it was difficult for our client to see it. In addition, where the trailer was, was in the same place that a bridge was usually seen by the client, so it blended in perfectly with him. Because of that, you have to have a conspicuity expert. Someone who can show what a person would visualize when they're actually driving on the roadway. The underride cases are very difficult to win, but often it's the tractor trailer and the trucking company that put the vehicle on the roadway because of their negligence and could not be seen by the client. That's what you have to prove in order to win these cases.
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- Improper Loading of the Trailer
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- Improper Loading of the Trailer Length: 00:02:24 Male: Another type of case that we see on occasion is negligent loading. Negligent loading can not only be the cause of the collision but it can also lead to an independent form of liability against another defendant. Typical situations when that happens is a load loss where on a flat bed that's not properly strapped, the load actually shifts and falls off of the trailer, or on occasion flips the trailer. So you want to look at issues about strapping and tarping and securing the load generally. Other situations have to do with oversized vehicles or oversized loads, like earth moving equipment on a type of trailer that's called a drop deck or on occasion, a double drop deck. Double drop decks and drop decks have the situation when they're crossing rail road grates perpendicular; the trailer can get hung up on the tracks. And this obviously can lead to a horrible collision with a train. With an oversized vehicle like a mobile home or a large boat, you also have situations with escort vehicles. And depending on the type of roadway they're on, they either need one or two. And they also need to have permits too, and only drive in daylight hours. Sometime the escort vehicles have to also have law enforcement clearing the way. Another type of loading situation we see are liquid containers. And they can either be baffled or not baffled. Baffled would be something like fuel where the load is actually separated in several different loads. Non-baffled load would be like food products like milk. A non-baffled trailer will get the super positioning of any stopping and starting and exacerbate any acceleration or deceleration dynamic in a collision. Other types are loading, uh, logging trucks. Logging trucks have a problem with not only their load not being secure, but the parts of the load falling off of the truck. Another issue with logging trucks is that they go into the woods to get loaded, and therefore, they're going through rough terrain, losing marker lights, scraping up conspicuity tape, all kinds of problems with the vehicle. Finally, with regard to sealed containers, you have a situation where the container is sealed for the security of the cargo. The driver doesn't know how it's baffled, how it's secured, and you can have load shift within that container.
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- Distractions for Truck Drivers
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- Distractions for Truck Drivers Length: 00:01:34 Michael Goldberg: Truck drivers are faced with numerous distractions while driving the vehicle. For the trucker, his cab of his truck is his home away from home. Within the cab, there can be DVD players, television sets, Qualcomm system, which is a keyboard where you can type in messages to a computer system to the dispatcher. Uh, as well as a constant use of cell phones or texting device. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has now made texting illegal. So the driver should not be texting or using a Qualcomm while operating his vehicle. It's very important that whenever you're handling a trucking case, that you obtain copies of Qualcomm messages as well as information about a cell phone use or use of a texting on a cell phone, to find out whether or not the driver was distracted at the time of the accident. Commercial driver's manuals have long forbid the use of cell phones in situations where they can be a distraction. So this is one of the areas that you have to look into to see whether or not the driver was distracted at the time of the accident, and also, whether or not the trucking company had the appropriate policies and procedures to prohibit use of Qualcomms, cell phones, and texting while driving. This is a big issue. It's caused lots of accidents and it needs to be investigated in every case you handle.
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- GPS & Qualcomm
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- Tracking a Truck Driver Using GPS (00:02:28) Buck Rogers: Important evidence that we secure in every collision investigation or at least in the discovery process is GPS coordinates for the subject tractor trailer. This is usually in conjunction with the Qualcomm or other communication device on the truck. Now these Qualcomm systems in conjunction with GPS are set to ping and send a satellite signal to the terminal every hour. Now the hours may be set per unit or they may be based on the sum of hourly, particular location for the terminal, but they'll do it every hour. They also will ping every time the trailer is separated from the tractor. This is for a security reason and not for the safety of the public. But you can see when a load is dropped or when one is hooked up. You can also see where a driver may have separated from his load for whatever reason. These separations usually have to be authorized and they have to be in secure drop spots. Occasionally, a driver will drop a loaded trailer in an unauthorized location which could lead to a safety issue. Now when we get the GPS data we are able to figure out exactly where the tractor trailer was each and every hour. We can then cross reference that to the logs which will indicate where the driver claims to have been at different times of the day. More importantly, we'll cross reference it with other data like comm data, which is like a credit card drivers use to purchase fuel and oil and other necessities on the road, and weight tickets or inspections they may get along the road. And, also, their cell phone records, showing the tower that sent the call through. In a rare instance, when a driver is involved in a collision, and either flees the scene or doesn't, isn't even aware he was involved in a collision, we've been able to use GPS data in order to figure out which tractor trailer was involved in the collision. In one case, we had a call, a 911 call at 5:27 A.M. and we had a ping from a subject trailer at 5:20 within three to five miles of the location in the A.M. So this enabled us to narrow down which vehicle was involved in the subject collision that happened to be a pedestrian incident in which the pedestrian was killed in the collision, so we had no other information other than the GPS to find the subject tractor trailer.
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- Pre-Trip Inspections of Tractor Trailers
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- Pre-Trip Inspections of Tractor Trailers (00:02:26) Joe Fried: One of the things that's required of professional truck drivers is that they inspect their tractor and their trailer, both before they get out on the roadway and at the end, a pre-trip and a post-trip inspection. The reason for this is it's a last ditch effort to make sure that the vehicle is reasonably safe on the roadway. And the things that they have to look for are, it's not just, hey go look at your truck, it's a very, very detailed process that they're supposed to go through. The best way to learn about that is to look in the Commercial Drivers License Manual, usually in section two. And it sets out for these drivers exactly what they're supposed to look for to make sure that their vehicles are kept safe. Where this becomes important is in any kind of a tractor trailer collision case where equipment played a role in bringing about the accident. Sometimes we've worked on cases where they are brake problems that should have been picked up by drivers beforehand because drivers are trained on how to inspect their brakes, and how to adjust their brakes for safety purposes. We've been involved in cases where wheels and tires have come off of tractors and/or trailers, usually trailers, and have gone on to hit people on the side of the road or hit other cars and cause catastrophic injuries and accidents. From a lawyers perspective, it is not a time to lay back when you have an issue in a collision that might involve some kind of mechanical failure of the truck. You should have in place a relationship with an expert mechanic trained specifically in tractors and trailers, who can go out and inspect the tractor and trailer for you and let you know if there are issues that may be involved. This is important both in situations where it seems pretty clear that some mechanical failure occurred, and it's also important in situations where a tractor trailer driver says that he had some type of a failure that you think may not exist. It's important to prove the defect or the problem when it's there and disprove it when it's not there.
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- Late Night Trucking Accidents
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- Late Night Trucking Accidents (00:02:59) Joe Fried: One of the things we see a lot in tractor trailer collision cases are cases that happen at night. The standards that apply to tractor trailer drivers are higher than those that apply to other drivers on the roadway who don't make their money by driving. One concept that's beaten into commercial drivers through their training is the idea of not over driving their headlights. In other words, they ought to be able to stop within the distance ahead of them that they can see. Important concept to keep in mind for all kinds of cases where you have a tractor trailer driver running into anything at night. Buck Rogers: Other types of collisions happen when a vehicle strikes a tractor trailer. Along the side of a trailer you have conspicuity tape. This alternating red and white tape should be maintained, cleaned, and cleared so that it can properly reflect and warn oncoming motorists. Unfortunately, the conspicuity tape is only worthwhile if the angle is sharp enough to actually cast a reflection back to an oncoming vehicle. Other warning indicators on a tractor trailer are the marker lights. On a container truck, these will be along the top and bottom; Red on the ends and amber on the middle. When we do a collision investigation, we look at these marker lights and actually look at the filaments of them to see if they were on or not at the time of the collision. Joe Fried: It's also really important not to assume that just because they were on, that means they were in good shape. The pictures you see are sometimes cleaned up by the defendants before you ever get to see them. We've seen many cases when marker lights worked, but they were so caked with dirt from operations, that they really were of no value to the motorists that were approaching them. Keep in mind, at night, also to look for any signs of fatigue. Fatigue driving accidents, it's a subject for another video, but it happens a lot at night for obvious reasons. Buck Rogers: The case Joe and I recently handled, dealt with a night time collision where a motor, a car driver, ran into the side of a backing tractor trailer. This had issues with regard to marker lights, conspicuity taping, and also driver fatigue. But more particularly, what was at issue was the driver, the injured driver's reaction perception time in a night time incident. Joe Fried: And that's something, that's when you get into the idea of being a professional driver versus a driver who doesn't earn their money driving on the roadways. We, it is fair to expect more from those drivers and driving defensively, which is what they're required to do, should take into consideration other drivers on the roadway are going to have more difficulties perceiving them and reacting to them at night.
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- Broker & Shipper Liability in Trucking Accidents
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- Broker and Shipping Liability for Trucking Accidents (00:01:36) Michael Goldberg: Many times in trucking cases you will find that there is not enough insurance coverage covering the motor carrier to compensate your clients for the loss. In a catastrophic injury or a wrongful death case, a million dollars in coverage may not be sufficient. To look for other defendants to try to recover from. One theory of recovery is trying to sue a broker or a shipper for causing the accident. A broker is someone who does not touch the goods and does not own the goods, but arranges for the transportation. The shipper is the owner of the goods who contracts with the motor carrier to provide transportation. In both scenarios, there is a possible link to liability if either, the broker or shipper, does not investigate the motor carrier, and the motor carrier has a poor driving record history. So if you have a motor carrier that has a long history of accidents, and the broker or shipper could have found out that this motor carrier was not competent to carry the kind of goods that are involved in the case, you may have a claim against the broker or the shipper. The shipper, in addition, may have liability if they fail to load the vehicle properly. So these are different avenues you look at and try to take if there's not enough coverage from the tractor trailer company to compensate your clients for the loss. Something you should always consider in catastrophic injury or wrongful death cases.
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- Taking the Truck Driver and Safety Director Depositions
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- Taking the Deposition of the Truck Driver and Safety Director (00:02:57) Buck Rogers: Two of the most important depositions in commercial vehicle collision case are the driver's deposition and the safety director. With the driver's deposition, we like to be thoroughly prepared with all of the documents produced in discovery: the driver's logs, inspection reports, Comm data, Qualcomm EPS. We uses these documents to either corroborate the driver's version of what he did when, or prove that some of the things the driver testified about are not accurate. We like to be prepared and understand these documents, without having to bring them out during the deposition, because we don't want the driver to have the opportunity to use these documents when his own testimony may differ. Joe Fried: That's right. There's no substitute for the preparation before the depositions. Now when you're actually in the deposition with the defendant, with the truck driver, the idea is to show that they, that it's fair to hold them to a standard of being a professional. The idea being that a professional standard is higher than the standard that we expect from other drivers on the roadway who don't earn their living by driving. The way we do this is by focusing on industry documents like the commercial driver's license manual, internal safety and driving manuals that show that these people are professional drivers and that they should know better and should have avoided whatever the, whatever the facts are that bring about the catastrophe in the case. Buck Rogers: With the safety director, the safety director really wears more than one hat. One, the safety director is the person who presumably trains and teaches the driver to avoid whatever brought this case to your door. Two, the safety director probably did an investigation into the subject collision and was part of the review committee that decided what disciplinary action, if any, should be taken on the driver. Like Joe was talking about with the CDL manual, there are many industry standard documents that are useful in taking the deposition of a safety director. Joe Fried: Yeah, one of the things that we like to do since we do a lot of trucking related cases is we, what I call cross pollinating. We find that some of these companies have better documents setting out the standards than other companies. And there's nothing that prevents us from using, for instance, a Swift company document against a Knight Transportation safety director or vice versa. Asking them, well is Swift safer than you are? Things along those lines. But the idea, and I can't over emphasize it is, you have to not only get the documents, but you have to get them reviewed, and you have to, as the lawyer getting prepared to take that deposition, satisfy yourself that you understand all of the nuances so that you're not learning about it for the first time in the deposition. Otherwise, you're heading for a situation where the wool is going to be pulled over your eyes.
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- Pedestrian Accidents Involving Tractor Trailers
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- Pedestrian Accidents Involving Tractor Trailers (00:01:08) Buck Rogers: Most pedestrian collisions involving commercial vehicles deal with the fact that these are articulated vehicles. That means the power unit or the tractor is separate from the trailer. When they're connected between the fifth wheel and the kingpin, the tractor and trailer can track separately. That means the tires of the tractor lead and the tires of the trailer follow, but they don't follow in the same tracks. Off tracking. So in situations where a tractor trailer is going around a curve or a turn in an urban setting, the tractor may miss a pedestrian standing on the side of the road, but the trailer can actually track out and strike the pedestrian. Sometimes, depending on whether the trailer is loaded or not, the driver may not even know they struck a pedestrian. Other circumstances where this may occur is in a right turn in an urban setting. Tractor trailers, because they are articulated, require a wide range to make that turn. Often times they run up on that corner, striking people waiting near the corner.
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- The First Steps in Investigating a Trucking Case
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- The First Steps In Investigating A Trucking Case Length: 00:04:13 Joe Fried: Ok, so you have a trucking case and the question becomes what do you do first? The idea here is to preserve whatever you can from the scene of the vehicles and whatnot. And whatever can't be preserved, you have to get letters out, preservation type letters out that we'll talk about. So let's go back and talk about what to try to preserve and then after that we'll talk about the letters to get out for things that you can't preserve. You're, when you think about preserving things, you're thinking about what can I preserve from the scene? What can I preserve from the vehicles? And then, what can I preserve from sort of the periphery things, and those are things like, uh, video cameras, video from bridges, video from local businesses, 9-1-1 tapes, and things that if you don't get to them quickly, they're going to be erased, overwritten, or gotten rid of. At the scene, specifically all the same types of scene evidence that you would have in any automotive collision are there. Skid marks, brake marks, tire marks, gouge marks, all those types of things that as time goes on become more and more difficult to discern and understand how it relates to a collision. So that needs to be preserved. And then they're also trucking specific things that, uh, can be found out there for periods of time, that are more specific types of tire marks, more specific types of marks on the roadway that would be indicators of maintenance problems and other vehicle mechanical problems that may have occurred and contributed to your collision. The, so, how do you preserve the stuff from the scene? You either need to get an expert out there who's competent in trucking, or you at least need to get somebody who photographically can go out there and document your scene. The preference is if it's a big enough case, you really need to go ahead and get a reconstructionist out there, and sometimes even other types of experts like brake system inspectors, overall truck inspectors, people who can look at the mechanical aspects of the truck and see what contributed. Um, so we've talked about the scene, we've talked about the vehicles, there's also downloading of black boxes that we'll cover under a separate section, but it's important to try and preserve. For everything that can't be preserved at the scene, it's really important to give whoever might have that information notice that they need to keep it. Typically called a spoliation letter. Right from day one, you got to get a spoliation letter out to the insurance company and to the trucking company involved in the case. There are, if you go to our website, we have an example of a spoliation letter that you can download, but you're asking them to preserve all of the things the trucking companies are required to have pursuant to the Federal and State regulations. These are things that will help you either prove or disprove problems with driver fatigue, with maintenance, uh you've heard of logs and those types of things. We have a pretty detailed letter and I recommend that you just download that and look at it. It should be fairly self-explanatory. Beyond that, the same letter should really go out to the insurance companies. We're finding that more and more insurance companies are involved in the process and may have documents. You may as well get the letter out to them. And then you need to ask yourself, before your day ends on day one, is there anybody else that we need to get letters of representation out to or letters to preserve any type of evidence. Again 9-1-1 tapes, if they're not preserved quickly can get gone. Videotapes from local and surrounding areas around the scene can get gone. Press coverage information can get gone and you need to broadly think through it. We also have a checklist of those types of things if you contact us, we'll be happy to send it to you. Thank you. Good luck on your case.
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- Warning Markers for Stopped Tractor Trailers
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- Warning Markers For Stopped Tractor-Trailers Length: 00:01:13 Michael Goldberg: 49 C.F.R. Section 392.22 requires a truck driver to place warning markers or caution triangles whenever his vehicle is stopped in or around the roadway. He's required to place these triangles out as soon as possible, but in no event, less than ten minutes. Whenever there is an accident involving a stopped tractor-trailer, one needs to investigate whether or not the truck driver placed the triangles out and whether they were placed in the correct location. The purpose of these markers is to make sure that oncoming traffic knows and sees where the tractor-trailer is in plenty of time to avoid a collision. Whenever there's an accident with a stopped tractor-trailer, it is important to make sure that the warning triangles were correctly placed.
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- Truck Driver Qualification File
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- Truck Driver Qualification File Length: 00:01:11 Michael Goldberg: A trucking company is required to keep a driver's qualification file on each of its drivers. The driver's qualification file must be kept for a number of years, even after the driver leaves employment with the company. The driver's qualification file includes the driver's application, the required background checks, and a moving violations report ran on the driver, drug and alcohol screens performed on the driver, medical certificates, and any other information concerning the driver is required in order to make sure he is qualified to drive a tractor trailer. In handling a trucking case, it is important to request the entire driver's qualification file and obtain all parts of it to see if the company was deficient in any manner in making sure that the driver was competent to drive its vehicles.
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- Understanding & Handling Truck Accident Claims
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- Understanding And Handling Truck Accident Claims Length: 00:01:07 Male: The lawyers in our firm often speak at seminars concerning trucking related issues. Our firm specializes in handling commercial motor vehicle cases and we've put our experience and our knowledge and our training in this area into a book called Understanding Motor Carrier Claims. Now this book was designed, not only for the first year basic lawyer handling trucking cases, but also for the more experienced lawyer. It has everything about federal regulations, when and how they apply, about different theories of liability, and it gives you the basics on how to handle a trucking case. Very proud to say that we are the ones that wrote the book when it comes to trucking related accidents.
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- Using Safersys org to Investigate a Trucking Company
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- Driving Trucks in Bad Weather
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- Driving Trucks In Bad Weather Length: 00:02:45 Joe Fried: Bad weather causes issues for all drivers, but nowhere is that more true than for the commercial driver driving a big truck. Because of the dangers that are inherent in driving those trucks in bad weather conditions, they are regulations, rules, and special laws that apply to govern the conduct of drivers when driving in those conditions. The first place we always look when we look for the laws and rule governing commercial drivers is the Official Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations. This is called the green book, and it's sort of the bible of trucking regulations. If you turn in this particular case to Section 392-14.14, it is entitled Hazardous Conditions, and it sets out that extreme caution in the operation of a commercial vehicle shall be exercised when hazardous conditions, such as those caused by snow, ice, sleet, fog, mist, rain, dust, or smoke adversely affect visibility or traction. The idea here is as the hazard increases, slow the truck down. But if we even go back before the regulatory stage, go back to the training that all drivers go through to get their commercial driver's license, and look at the most basic publication that, that sets out what they're supposed to do, the commercial driver's license manual. It's kind of like the manual you studied before you got your driver's license, but this one is much, much more significant because it involves commercial vehicles. It has a section in there dealing with bad weather conditions, and essentially in that, in that, uh, section, it talks about the dangers of slippery roads. It tells you that if you're driving in the rain, you should reduce your speed by about one-third. That means on a fifty-five mile an hour road, you should be driving no more than about thirty-five to forty miles per hour, and of course even slower in icy or snowy conditions. Really good to focus on in a commercial vehicle case, using the CDL manual, using the regulations, and then using any of the training materials that exist. This is a good one that's available from jjkeller.com, which is the master driver's series and this one covers extreme weather driving. Good luck with your case.
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- Annual Review of Truck Driver
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- Annual Review Of Truck Driver Length: 00:01:05 Michael Goldberg: Trucking companies are required to constantly monitor drivers to make sure that they are competent to drive tractor trailers. This includes doing an annual review. An annual review occurs each year. The trucking company obtains in writing from the driver, a list of any citations or accidents the driver's been involved in over the past year. The trucking company then also runs a moving violations report, listing any citations received by the driver. The company is required to take this information into account and decide whether or not the driver is still eligible to drive for the company. This is one of the ways in which trucking companies monitor their drivers to make sure they're safe.
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- Understanding Qualcomm Data
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- Understanding Qualcomm Data Length: 00:03:36 Buck Rogers: Qualcomm is a good way to try and figure out where drivers have been and where they were heading. Qualcomm is sort of like Kleenex, in that it's a trade name for a device that can help track a trucker on the road. It's used almost like email between the trucking company and the trucker. And on his, in his, uh, computer terminal in his cab, he'll have a screen that looks something like this. Now this is a printed out version of a single screen of Qualcomm, and it's got a lot of data on it. Throughout the course of a day, a driver might go through fifteen, twenty screens such as this, and you have to know where the information is stored on a document like this to get any use out of it. Um, what you're going to find is, you'll have an order number, a bill of lading, an invoice number and a status code, which in this one is empty, but in reality this was a loaded dispatch. And then you've got the shipper, who is sending the product, um, but it's being sent from this location in Charleston to this location in Villa Rica, Georgia. And on down, you'll see other information with regard to the weight of the load, the number of pieces in it, and whether or not the driver had to load his trailer or unload his trailer. It's also important to note that his pick-up time is March 15th to March 16th, anytime between 5:37 A.M. and 5:35 A.M. So almost a twenty-four hour window from the pick-up that load, and then his delivery time is between 6 P.M. and midnight on the sixteenth. Now, continuing on down here, the only email exchange you actually see between the driver and the dispatcher are these two lines. And if you look at all of the Qualcomm data for this run together and just kind of concentrate on these two lines, you will get what turns into the conversation between the truck driver and the dispatcher. And what this one says is on March 16th, at 2:18, uh, this signal was sent. The truck is in Thomas, Georgia and the truck it says connect and it has the unit number. The unit number is the power unit, and connect just means that the tractor is connected to the trailer. Whenever that happens, this particular motor carrier has a system set up so that whenever his tractor is connected to a trailer, it automatically tells the dispatcher its connected. And then, this is one the driver actually sent. Same date at 7:20 in the evening in Villa Rica, Georgia, he says, arrived at Consignee. Time to load. And he is telling them that he is ready to take another load. Now when you get Qualcomm data, you're going to get hundreds and hundreds of pages of data. Once you get all of this information for each and every trip, what you need to concentrate on are these two lines in order to be able to understand the communication happening between the driver and his dispatcher.
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- Claims of Negligent Hiring, Retention and Supervision Against Trucking Companies
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- Claims Of Negligent Hiring, Retention And Supervision Against Trucking Companies Length: 00:01:05 Michael Goldberg: Trucking companies have an obligation under the Federal regulations to make sure their drivers are competent before they put them on the road. They're required to do certain background checks before they hire the driver. And then, they're required to monitor the driver over the course of his work history with the company. If the trucking company fails to follow the regulations and fails to follow industry standards in monitoring their drivers, they can be held responsible for the driver's conduct under a theory of negligent hiring, retention, or supervision. In handling any trucking case, it's important to obtain the complete driver's qualification file in order to review whether or not the trucking company was negligent in this regards.