Woman says she was fired over jury duty, court appoints attorney to sue SWIFT

Interesting thoughts on the Crete driver.

 

Cretre moved fast on that one . Before the driver's cell door was locked they hired the best lawyers in the state to represent him . The driver didn't speak to the NTSB . There was plenty of documentation dispatch knowingly and repeatedly gave him loads that required violation of HOS to deliver .

http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/fulltext/HAB0805.htmI
If this was a small carrier the dispatcher and company owners would have had felony charges filed by the DOT OIG .

 

Yep, I agree Rick.. But we all know that the dispatcher and company owners never, ever, told him to drive that many hours. They would never have a driver violate HOS regulations. At least that's what they would say..

An example of a dispatcher and owner being able to keep the blame off of themselves...
One of our drivers had to load at a place that was too far to arrive at with the driving time he had left, which was only 1 hr. The yard was within the route he had to take to the shipper. So he parked the truck at the yard, got into his personal vehicle and headed home for his 10hrs off. The dispatcher spotted him driving home, and called him, asking what he was doing, and where he was going. He told the dispatcher that he was going home. The dispatcher then told him to get his arse back in the truck, DOT required that he drive 11 hrs. The driver replied that he only had 1 hr left, and that would not get him to a safe place to park. The dispatcher's reply was, That's not my problem, I don't care, get back in the truck and drive. The driver hung up on him, and needless to say nothing happened to him. I wonder why???

Now the same dispatcher, and the owner will also tell you, that if you can not make it to where you're suppose to load or unload, then pick someplace along the way, early enough to stop before running out of hours. If you violate the HOS, you're fired. This is a real small company, yet they do things behind the curtains, setting up loads, runs that try to force you to drive over your hours. They will only make damaging statements personally to you, where they can deny them.

I think those dispatchers that are so bold as to put such things in writing, such as via Qualcom, Peoplenet, are real idiots, and just haven't been schooled in how to accomplish this without having it come back on you. I'd say if you even think that such a phone conversation will take place, record it, so you have something to CYOA, when you tell the dispatcher to take a long walk off a short pier.

 

If the company asks me to do something obviously illegal like drive over my 11/14 I always ask them to send it on the qualcom. Funny thing is I've never had them do it and never had a reprisal either. The company that I am with now has one driver in particular that continually drives after being on duty 16-18 hrs. Thinks he is being slick using 2 different trucks and not logging trips to make it fit the logbook. He is not so bright as any audit of his pay will show him getting paid for those trips and when matched to the qualcom and his logs will show the discrepancy. The company is sending him out on this crap so I wonder what their defense will be?

 

First OTR company I ever worked for was run by a pair of Punjabi(sp?) fellows. Nice guys but they would always say,"You are never out of hours buddy if you have more log book pages."

Long story short I came back to the office after some home time and there where some men in suits with paperwork spread all over the floor and asking lots of questions that they didn't have real good answers for. I quit as soon as I found my next job.

 

My question was rhetorical. There will be no defense. I see a huge fine, mandatory elogs and/or immediate suspension of operating authority. We have several guys running over logs on a daily basis and the company has several terminals so its widespread. When the .... hits the fan I doubt that they will survive.

 

Civil suits are a way for a victim, in this case, auto accident to obtain more money from the person(s) who caused the accident. Most likely in this case because the insurance money will not cover the medical bills. Therefore the victims can pursue for more money.

My close friend was going thru this type of case just last year. Drunken, high, teenage driver hit him on his motorcycle almost killing him. One month in coma, two more months in ICU, then 3 months in hospital. He's paralyzed from chest down, lost his job, and almost everything else. The at fault driver's insurance amount, according to the policy, only would have been $25,000! That didn't even cover the take-off for the helicopter. Much less the flight plus all other expenses. The civil suit was to try to get more money.

I took a close look at my policy after my friends accident and found that a person would only get $50,000 from my insurer. Yeah my premiums increased slightly, but my payout is MUCH more than 50k now if by chance I were at fault and I disabled someone for life.

Civil suits like this happen all the time. It is not a court payoff, but recourse for the victims trying to survive an ordeal caused by negligence on someone else's part.
The Crete driver agreeing to testify against his employer was nothing more than a quick plea bargain to save his finances for the rest of his/her life. A civil suit like that would have devastated them. Especially after killing 6 children.

 

I bet in this case Crete made an offer this low income family thought was generous and there was never a court case . Fast money on the spot instead of waiting an undetermined amount of time for trial and possibly appeals.

 

Highly possible if the victims lawyers were able to use the testimony of the Crete driver and back logs and other documents to prove they were pushing him to drive illegally. The victims lawyer probably smells a big paycheck and could possibly push to have the family(s) press for court action. I know laws vary from state to state, but in my friends case, they had up to one year to file their civil suit and then up to two years for the court to make a decision at the earliest. It's possible that this may be a quick payoff, but it may also end up playing out in court at a much later date.

Either way, Crete will be wanting to settle out of court and keep as much hush-hush as possible.

 

The court papers filed in the Swift case indicated that Swift settled the case out of court with the driver. That means the good guys won. Nothing against Swift.