Pennsylvania Injury Law Report : Pennsylvania Personal Injury Lawyer & Attorney : Stuart Carpey Law Firm : Auto Accidents & Product Liability : Pennsylvania Injury Law Report

With less goods being purchased by consumers, there’s less to ship. That means smaller profits for trucking companies. How are trucking companies dealing with the financial pressures? The concern is that they are cutting safety corners.

According to the American Transportation Research Institute, (ATRI), the representative research arm of the trucking industry, driver shortage is a major concern going forward. In addition, the Department of Transportation allows for fewer allowable driving hours, and there is an aging driving force. One answer for trucking companies? Recruit new drivers and establish new entrance programs that enhance drivers’ confidence in less training time.

This is a scary proposition. Compare this approach with the fact that legal liability is also a major concern of the ATRI. For instance, ARTI's 2007 study proposes

“a vigorous education campaign aimed at identifying specific ways in which citizens are harmed by imprudent damage assessments [designed to] promote legislative action, resulting in damage caps…”

In other words, avoid legal responsibility for reckless drivers while at the same time utilize less experienced drivers who get on the road in big rigs with less training.

Trucks have a more difficult time compared to private passenger motor vehicles of stopping, turning and maneuvering. This is the basic physics behind vehicle/truck collisions. Enhanced driver training and stricter enforcement is the answer.

The federal government has stepped in with a significant game changer counterbalancing the trucking industry’s approaches. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has instituted a new comprehensive safety analysis (CSA 2010) designed to reduce the number of crashes, injuries and fatalities. The teeth behind the program is the seven Behavioral Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories (BASIC) which will create a database on fleet truckers and driver violations, warnings, DOT reportable accidents and other truck driver activity which are instantly available to trucking companies and FMSCA. “The CSA program will help us more easily identify unsafe commercial truck and bus companies,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “Better data and targeted enforcement will raise the safety bar for commercial carriers and empower them to take action before safety problems occur.”

According to M. Thomas Ruke, Jr., president of Insurance Business Consultants, Inc., the federal government has not been shy in saying that it is increasing efforts to put the 20 percent of motor carriers it believes are bad operators out of business and making the ratings available for public viewing in real time.Under the new CSA 2010, roadside inspection information will be included in the federal database.  The available information will be immediate and continuous for each driver. In other words, there will be no lag time from when a violation occurs until is available to shippers and FMCSA. And,  for the first time, drivers will be held accountable for their personal driving record and out-of-service violations. This includes speeding violations,  violations for following too closely, or failing  and being within the required hours of service  to name just a few,  will all factor into a trucker's safety rating.  

Juries have always held trucking companies responsible for unsafe drivers who cause accidents that result in serious injuries.  But now that CSA 2010 provides new information that says whether a driver is fit, marginal or unfit. As such  a shipper's viewpoint of a trucker — and their liability if an accident occurs — will change.Trucking companies are going to have to screen their drivers in more detail than they ever have before.

Ruke had this to say in the article "2010 A Revolutionary Year For Truckers Insurance" in the May 2010 edition of Insurance Journal:

"What happens if the federal government determines that the driver's actions have led to a rating that he's/she's unfit to drive and that information is readily available online. Imagine standing before a jury trying to defend a driver that has been rated unfit to drive. If they are unfit, why did you give them a load? If you had not given them a load, they would not have been there to kill or hurt that person. [The new safety ratings have] placed a layer into the system that is almost impossible to defend.'

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I was very impressed with the two books written by Stuart A. Carpey, Esquire - Purchasing Auto Insurance in Pennsylvania, and The Ten Biggest Mistakes That Can Wreck Your Pennsylvania Accident Case.  As these books make clear, Mr. Carpey has the rare ability to combine his extensive knowledge of the law with the sort of real-world information that consumers absolutely need to know. I recommend that anyone who owns a car read Mr. Carpey's books, as well as anyone who has been in any kind of accident where an injury was sustained. These two books are a must-read for any informed citizen of Pennsylvania.

R. Polk Wagner is a Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. At UPenn, he teaches and researches issues relating to the law and technology.

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The answer is no. Yet knowing the importance of the statute of limitations is key to protecting your rights in a typical personal injury case.

Here's an example. I received a call from a woman who had fallen from the bed of a pick-up truck and fractured her elbow. She went to an emergency room where she was examined and X rays were done. The X rays showed an avulsion fracture at the elbow which did not require casting. She was released, but later developed complications, and came under the care of an orthopedic surgeon, who did surgery on the elbow a few months later. Something went wrong with the surgery and she was left with minor nerve damage in her hand.

She hired an attorney to investigate a potential medical malpractice case. That attorney looked into the case and determined the injuries weren't serious enough to warrant pursuing a medical malpractice case and informed his client as much. The attorney sent her a letter informing her that in  Pennsylvania, the two year statute of limitations required her to file suit against any responsible parties for her injuries pertaining to the medical malpractice case, or she would lose her right to do so,  and that if she wished to do that she would have to find another lawyer.  The problem was the woman was never informed, never knew, or never realized that the same two year statute of limitations that applied to her potential medical malpractice case also applied to the underlying incident that resulted in her fall.

When she called me, twenty six months after her original injury, she told me that she has slipped on the bed of the pick up because there was an oily substance that she had not seen.  This was not investigated by the first attorney that she had hired. But by the time she contacted me the two year statute of limitations had expired. If she had contacted me earlier, I explained to her, I would have pursued the case against the owner of the pick-up truck for neglecting to clean the oil from the bed of the truck and not informing her of the slippery substance which ultimately led to her injuries. She however had no idea that the two year statute of limitations applied to her original incident. She was so focused on the potential malpractice case that she lost sight of the possibility of pursuing a case based upon her original fall.

As lawyers, we assume the public is aware of what the statute of limitations is and what it means,  in any particular case.  It’s part of the language that we speak, and we assume, incorrectly,  that the public uses the same language.  I was surprised that the woman that called me was simply unaware that the time limit had expired on her case. That's one reason I have written this article. The lawyer that was looking into the medical malpractice case never thought of looking into the negligence of the owner of the pick-up truck as a means of seeking compensation for his client’s injuries. That's not to say that the case against the owner of the pick-up is an easy case. It may be fraught with all sorts of difficulties. Nevertheless, the woman who called me is time-barred from even looking into that case because of the two year statute of limitations.

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