Family awarded $14 million because truck not equipped with e-log.

Landstar needs a better defense team. Apparently, they were not aware of the Walmart driver who hurt and killed motorists in New Jersey a few months ago. He was on elogs and was legal. But, he told investigators that he had been up for 24 hours. It is unbelievable that jurors will ignore someone speeding and NOT ignore that a driver may have been over his hos by a few minutes. Whether the driver is legally at fault or not won't guarantee that the carrier and their insurance company won't have to pay the price. And the trial lawyers who do these cases want to increase our insurance to over $4 million. I hope Landstar appeals this verdict. Perhaps this is why they now require all new BCO's to install elogs. It won't solve the problem and won't insure drivers are rested or have adequate sleep. It will make the uninformed feel better. If someone is speeding and hits a truck they should be held at least partially responsible. If the speeder could have prevented the accident had they been traveling at the speed limit then the case should be thrown out.

 

this case started in 2011, Tracy Morgan's is hardly 2 months old.

Since elogs are not required by law, I wish Landstar would counter-sue...since the lawyers just decides to overlook the whole falsification thing that would have been an easier target.

A better defense team would have been pointless, all lawyers and judges have a complete monopoly on the justice system and are in bed together money-wise. Cases like Treyvon Martin and OJ Simpson were widely publicized and took forever, but same same length of time is literally how long simple property disputes or car accident claims can drag on for.

 

i liked the comment that landstar knew that paper logs was not an effective means to safety management control.

elogs have been out for years. and yet, we the drivers, who work with logs. still don't have a clue how elogs can control safety.

 

Good points, but as long as FMCSA, lawyers, and insurance companies keep investing time and money into perpetrating that elogs will solve the problem, then in society's view elogs will solve the problem. Meanwhile more fatigue related fatalities multiply in the trucking industry due to being forced to follow redundant HOS rules.

 

That is because elogs do not control safety, only compliance with redundant and costly laws. No one at all in society really benefits from the elog mandates except the software companies, lawyers, insurance companies, and trucking company like Wal Mart and Werner who we have to thank for it all to begin with in the 1990s. I shouldn't even blame them, if it wasn't those two companies somebody would have screwed it up.

Never mind the fact that we allow students with only 6 months of experience to become trainers...yup no danger there.

 

The E-log does not relegate the driver from being unsafe. It only ensures the driver is held accountable for the HOS 11,14,70 hour rule including the amended 30 min required break after being on-duty for no more than eight hours. Who is to say the driver would be any safer if he had been home in bed for two days before returning to on-duty the day he was involved in the accident? The Jury awarding such extreme punitive damages is a slap in the face to the transportation industry. We are all grouped into a sub-species of humans even though not all truckers cheat on the Drivers Daily Log Book, the same goes for Captains that sink Cruise Ships or Pilots that plunge aircraft thousand of feet into a corn field, the Company and Employee is most always blamed for being negligent.

 

I used to get broker loads from Landstar,,they never asked if I had the hours to legally haul the loads and many cases they knew but still insisted that the load be delivered..
Landstar wants paper logs and they know many of their driver write "fiction" in their log books,,
One would think that the Feds after an accident like this and proof that the driver had falsified logs they would require Landstar to go to E-Logs..
I once had a Landstar Agents hand book of rules,,there is nothing in the Agents Hand book that says anything about honesty or integrity nor running a driver-O/O legal.

 

Paper logs!
Is there nothing they cannot do?!
But guess what? Just about every truck out there has computer modules that will RAT YOU OUT, all you super-trucking, super-clever, paper log fiction writers.
Playing the Create Another Reality game works fine until something goes sideways.

 

So 10 minutes over his 11 hours and 30 minutes short on his 10 and he's a $14 million dollar menace to society? I guess it is what it is but I'd feel better about the verdict if it was due to his speeding causing the accident. There's no way I'm buying that this guy was fatigued in the "real world" if those hours are corrects.