A truck driver claiming to have been imprisoned for 17 days without being charged with a crime is filing a lawsuit in federal court against the county, the county jail, and the sheriff’s office of Box Elder County, Utah.
The driver, Robert Kuchcinki, says that he was traveling southbound on I-15 when he “reached across the cab of the tractor to retrieve an item causing the truck to drift out of the lane of travel.”
When he noticed his mistake, he quickly corrected it, but that infraction caused a nearby motorist to call the police who pulled him over a few minutes later. [click to continue…]
The dreaded HOS changes are right around the corner, and come July 1st, OTR drivers will be following a new federally-mandated sleep schedule. The FMCSA seems to think that there will be a smooth transition, but some industry and safety advocacy groups are expecting a bit of a bumpy ride.
When speaking during the kickoff event for Roadcheck 2013, FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro said that “We think HOS reform is going to go smoothly; the vast majority of carriers and drivers are informed about the changes.” Despite Anne Ferro’s confidence, others seem to be less convinced. [click to continue…]
Truck and trailer theft are major problems in our industry, but they can be even bigger problems when the driver is stolen along with his rig! A driver had pulled into a hotel parking lot early in the morning on Monday the 10th and was checking his load in the trailer when all of a sudden his rig started to move. [click to continue…]
The carrier crash-risk rating given by the CSA known as a BASIC score (Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories) is a notoriously poor judge of a carrier’s actual safety risk. It’s a relatively new system, but so far the scores have had very little bearing on actual safety while having a disproportionately large negative impact on drivers’ lives.
A carrier’s BASIC score is made up of seven different categories, Unsafe Driving, Hours-of-Service Compliance, Driver Fitness, Controlled Substances/Alcohol, Vehicle Maintenance, Hazardous Materials Compliance, and Crash Indicator. The VP of safety at FedEx, Scott Mugno, famously claimed that only three of the seven categories have any correlation to a carrier’s actual crash risk. From all corners of the industry, there has been a universal call for a reexamination of the BASICs scoring system. It seems that the noise has gotten so loud that the CSA has finally heard it. [click to continue…]
Even if you’ve never heard of Joseph Volpe, you’ve probably heard of people like him. Volpe was known as the “Trucker Spy” and would drive around the nation’s highways with video cameras hoping to find truck drivers with unsafe driving habits. His “company,” Third Eye Highway Safety, would then send a copy of the video to the driver’s trucking company who would pay him for exclusive rights to keep the video from being released to the public. Essentially, it amounts to good old fashioned blackmail. Living in a legal gray area for years, he took his unsavory activities quite a bit further, jumping all the way to attempted murder. [click to continue…]
The RICO act is famous for taking down high-ranking members of organized crime institutions and was created in the 1970s to be able to hold high-ranking members of the mafia accountable for the actions of their lower-ranking members. It was used successfully against such organizations as the Latin Kings, the Gambino Crime Family, and the Chicago Outfit. Pilot Flying J has just been accused of violating the racketeering statutes by Shoreline Transportation, a fleet of around 160, who say that Pilot Flying J breached its contract and committed fraud.
Shoreline is far from the first company to file a lawsuit against Pilot Flying J over their alleged rebate fraud scheme, but they are absolutely the first to site the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. [click to continue…]