Paperless logs

Where did it say his books were fudged? The way I read that, he was "cited" because his truck wasn't a full 15 feet from the roadway and was technically supposed to be "on duty" (am I right?). Because of a stupid technicality, this guy gets **** thrown at him. That's not right. He was parked on his own private property.

He should have countersued the family of the drunk for property damage and trespassing.

 

My roommate was talking to a Swift driver yesterday. She says that Swift is going to the paperless logs starting the first of the year. I guess Swift is feeling some heat from their poor safety record and are trying to 'clean it up' a little by forcing their drivers to be compliant. I think forcing the planning departments and dispatchers to be compliant in their dispatching would make more sense, but this is easier.

 

You're right, but the legal premise is that had the truck not been parked there, the man might have lived, because he would have wound up in a cornfield, rather than to have his head split wide open on the corner of a trailer.

My friend's logbook clearly implicated him to being someplace where he should not have been. He was legally supposed to take a rest break two hours prior to getting home, and was not supposed to have been there for another five hours. The truck was just a foot from being legally parked off of the roadway, and the bumper was totally non-protective, which came down on the company. It bankrupted them.

Here's another, although I know people might be tired of cases, but some of you may remember the fog pile-up near Ringgold, Georgia on March 14, 2002. Two trucks on the northbound side collided, which started the chain reaction. Minutes later, 125 vehicles were involved, and 5 people died.

What you will not find widely mentioned, is what happened to those two drivers. One, was found when the investigation was completed, to be slightly over on his ten hour driving limit. The second, was found to be horribly over on his 70 hour limit, and had falsified his logbook for all of his previous 8 days.

The driver who wit the ten hour violation, was fined $1,500, and the other driver was fined $5,000. Both were fired by their respective companies, not too long after they notified them of the wreck.

USATODAY.com - Pileup on foggy Georgia road kills at least 5

The "you weren't supposed to be there at the time this happened" charge is a very common point that is being used to bilk companies, and the drivers themselves out of millions of dollars. And it works too. Juries have practically went along with it in almost every case it is used.

 

No, and I'm sorry if I didn't make things clear. He had driven two hours beyond the point where he was supposed to take an eight hour break (old rules). He drove on to the house, and had completed his log book to show that he would be arriving about five hours beyond the time that the pickup truck slammed into the rear of the trailer.

The charges laid by the State were nothing. If I remember right, he only paid a $145.00 fine for the logbook violation. The Feds did not investigate this one, and it was handled completely by the State of Georgia.

What ate him alive, was the civil lawsuit that he had to fight. It was the Attorney fees that caused him the loss of his house. The dead man's family didn't receive very much at all. The carrier bankrupted and walked away from the entire thing. He (the driver) had little left, after the Lawyer finished claiming his fees.

Of course, that was one of the first responses to the suit, once it was filed. I doubt that the Attorney was able to get the words out of his mouth, before it was denied. The trailer was the only property damaged, and it's a bit hard to sue for trespassing in the case of an automobile accident, even when they are drunk.

 

That was what nailed him.

 

Well...if this is the case, then their planners and dispatchers are going to have no choice in the matter. There will be an indelible record of everything done that will have to remain on file for six months.

Depending on how their system will be set up, they may well be notified at the moment a driver steps over the HOS line, and if that's the case, and the dispatcher fails to react, and something goes wrong, like a fatal accident, that dispatcher will have some 'splainin' to do.

 

Ah, then ok, he "fudged" himself.

So what was their basis for the suit? That he wasn't supposed to be there in the first place? The logbook violation aside, I still stand by my assertion that this is an example of why we need lawsuit reform. Lawyers are sometimes worst than any Nigerian email scam artist or crooked politician you'll run into.

 

I guess I don't understand why the driver lost his house. Isn't it possible to claim bankruptcy like the company to avoid this??

Good Lord, if OJ Simpson can get away with it...

 

The Attorney he hired out of Atlanta was expensive. As I understand it, the lawyer levied a lien on his home for the balance of the fees, when his savings ran out. This driver was near 70 when this happened. The house was sold to pay his legal bills, and that pretty much took it all. I don't think he worked very much during the time that all of this was going on, nor do I think that he had any idea that it would stretch out for that length of time either.

Truth be known, it may well be that his own Attorney screwed him, but I don't have any way of knowing this for sure. The Attorney did receive the most out of all of this, for his representation. And the driver did eventually bankrupt, but you know darn well that the Attorney wasn't going to walk away with nothing.

And we're not talking about a very expensive home here either. I don't think it would have sold for much more than $75,000.