AG Exempt (theoretically) and moral duties.

I definitely would, because my conscience won't allow me to withhold information that could help the victim's surviving family members get justice. Transparency and accountability are good things; obructions of justice is not.

Please tell me that wasn't our Gus,

 

I thought I smelled an agenda.....

You'll be pleased to learn that DOT statistics show that carriers operating under Ag Exempt HOS have a better safety record than average. That doesn't mean everyone is safe, but it's not the fault of the regs. Ultimately, it's the driver that decides to drive or park.

 

A good chunk of the country is under an exemption for propane right now and I haven’t heard of any explosions.

 

I would stay out of it completely. You have absolutely nothing to gain, and mud slinging never did anybody any good. If you no longer work there, IMO you no longer have an ax to grind. If you try to get compensation for “driving unsafe vehicles”, by riding on the coat tail of this “case”, if I was the judge, I would rule that you didn’t do a proper pre trip. As the driver, you can tell the mechanic to go pound rocks if necessary. Also, you referenced a working mechanical knowledge, you could have gotten a wrench and adjusted those brakes yourself in a few minutes, and everything would have been better right there.

 

I agree. It’s between the employee and the boss if they feel the conditions aren’t safe. If the truck doesn’t pass a pretrip it technically shouldn’t leave. If others looking on have concerns about it they don’t need to wait for a guy to die before they voice those concerns.

 

And this "accident" occurred because he fell asleep? Or looking at his phone? Making a sandwhich while driving? Steer tire blew?

Or we just automatically assume and hold the employer responsible?

Do we also assume he was forced to drive under fear of retribution?

 

I have a lot of agricuturally exempt trucks running around my home, there has only been one accident i remember living here and that was because of someone cutting a truck off.
Yeah, I agree with Accidental Trucker, it stinks of an agenda. Before you try to tell me I'm a pretty negative person who can't comprehend, I know more than you about the subject.

Nothing wrong with the ag exception, it is with the owner and the state.

Did the family sue the owner based on the state labor laws?

Here you can't work more than 14 hours driving a truck without an 8-hour break, and all hours worked determines that 14 hours. There is NO exemption under the state's labor law. The ag exemption is an FMCSA thing, not a state thing, but the states can choose to modify the exemption by adding more limitations into it.

The owner is at fault, but so is the driver.

The driver should know the laws; they are licensed through a program that should educate them, and this is a glaring problem with the system. If the driver is exempt from a CDL, then it is still on them to know the laws, and in this state, there are a lot of resources that can be used to educate them.

What protects the driver in all 50 states and even in the ag industry is the STAA which is there to protect a driver from coercing drivers to operate in violation of the law, including driving an unsafe truck.

A lawyer, even an ambulance-chasing POS scum lawyer would hook onto this and sue the owner out of business just because of this law.

AND that's on the driver, not just the owner. The driver of a commercial motor vehicle has an obligation to make sure it is safe, but then it falls back on the owner to maintain the vehicle.

As for the records, just ask the cops, they can give you an idea of when and where it happened and file an FOI request for the records.