PERSONAL INJURY BLOG

A freak accident involving a Metro bus, a runaway dump truck and a BMW injured at least 17 people on Tuesday Morning, Oct. 23, 2012, at about 8 a.m., in Hollywood. The bus was carrying 25 passengers.

The driver of the BMW was taking her 10 year old daughter to school when the chain reaction crash occurred – apparently out of the blue. The event started when a runaway, unmanned dump truck went out of control, wildly rolling down a hill, striking a bus heading west on the 7600 block of Hollywood Blvd.

The bus driver apparently tried to avoid the dump truck and swerved into eastbound traffic. That’s when the bus crashed into the BMW sedan. The force of the crash pushed the sedan back some distance. The collision between the BMW and the bus created an extremely dangerous situation for everyone, especially the driver of the car. She was trapped in the car for at least twenty minutes before being freed by firefighters.

The driver of the BMW was taken to the hospital in serious condition. Her injuries included a broken left leg. Fortunately, her daughter was able to free herself from the vehicle and sustained only minor injuries.

Also injured was the bus driver, who was listed in fair condition. Many bus passengers were taken to the hospital for examinations and treatment of minor bruises. Some passengers sustained cuts from exiting through the shattered emergency windows.

There was a major accident on Hollywood Blvd near Highland Blvd.  A dump truck rolled down a hill after the brakes failed.  There was no driver in the truck which rolled out of control into traffic.  When the vehicle reached an intersection in broadsided a city bus sending it into oncoming traffic where it slammed head on into a BMW coming from the opposite direction.  There were several people injured in the crash but luckily no one was killed.

It’s a national problem, and one that Los Angeles truck accident attorneys believe could impact trucking safety in California and around the country. Across all 50 states, trucking companies are reporting a shortfall in the number of trained and experienced truck drivers.

Trucking simply isn't as attractive a job option for young people as it used to be a couple of decades ago. Not many young people now want a job that keeps them away from family for long periods of time.

Further, the trucking industry also believes that the federal administration’s recently strengthened standards are preventing people from applying for these jobs. The new rules include logbook maintenance standards that make it harder for truck drivers to falsify log books. Besides, strict restrictions on Hours of Service, also limit the number of hours that a truck driver can drive.

All these factors have made trucking a much less attractive proposition than earlier, which explains the shortfall of applicants. Trucking companies are trying to meet the shortfall in their own ways. Some have resorted to setting up their own trucking training colleges in order to train batches of applicants. However, others are simply cutting down operations, resulting in delayed deliveries.

What Los Angeles truck accident lawyers are really concerned about is the possible effect on trucking safety as a result of the shortage. Inexperienced, unskilled drivers are now likely to be picked up by many trucking companies looking to hire any truck driver.

In other parts of the country, there are efforts to increase the truck driver pool using other sources. In Virginia, the Virginia Trucking Association is supporting a program, which helps former military veterans obtain commercial driving licenses for a new career.

A piece of legislation that would provide for increased funding to enhance the current network of truck stop and resting facilities for tractor-trailer drivers, has been reintroduced in Congress.  Los Angeles truck accident attorneys hope that this time around Congress will pass Jason’s Law, thereby addressing a long-felt need in trucking safety. The last time the bill was introduced in Congress, it died without much progress. 

Jason’s Law was named after Jason Rivenburg, a tractor-trailer driver who died when he was attacked by a robber at an abandoned gas station.  Rivenburg had arrived early for a delivery, and finding no other place to park, had parked his truck at the gas station.  His widow has spearheaded efforts to have Jason’s Law passed. 

In this new version of the bill, the law would provide $20 million in annual funding to enhance the network of rest and parking facilities for truck drivers across the country.  The funding would also be used to construct new rest and parking facilities as well as to increase the capacity of current facilities to accommodate more trucks and larger tractor-trailers.

While federal rules strictly limit the number of hours that a truck driver can drive consecutively, a truck driver needs convenient access to safe rest stops and parking facilities if he is to pull over when tired.  Unfortunately, many states around the country have closed down dozens of truck stops in an effort to contain costs.  The result has been a lack of convenient access to enough numbers of truck stop and rest facilities for tractor-trailer drivers. 

The lack of enough parking facilities means that a trucker may have no other option but to continue to drive while tired.  The other option would be to pull over on the side of highway, or park the truck in an abandoned and potentially dangerous place, like Jason Rivenburg did. 

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s current rules fail to ensure that medically unfit truck drivers are kept off the roads.  As a result, thousands of truck drivers continue to drive with dangerous health conditions that range from diabetes and obesity to cardiac disease, with nothing to prevent them from doing so.  That dismal situation is the subject of an investigation by news21, a college journalism coalition.

In 2002, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended stronger medical health standards for truck drivers, and strict procedures in place to prevent medically unfit drivers from operating tractor-trailers.  The recommendation came in response to a bus accident in 1999 in Louisiana that killed 22 passengers, and was ultimately linked to a seriously ill driver who became incapacitated at the wheel.  Since the time those recommendations were made until 2008, there are estimated to have been 826 fatal commercial truck accidents involving medically unfit drivers.  These accidents include those that involve drivers with sleep apnea, because this is considered a medical condition that induces sleeplessness, drowsiness and therefore, fatigue.

The current system is rife with too many problems for Los Angeles truck accident lawyers to believe that there will be a solution soon.  For instance, there are a total of 400,000 medical practitioners across the country who are deemed eligible to issue medical certificates for more than 6 million commercial truck drivers.  The law isn't even very specific about the kind of medical practitioner who can conduct a medical exam.  A truck driver could be certified by a nurse assistant or a chiropractor.  That's just the situation with truckers who want to go the legal route in order to obtain a medical certificate.  Truckers who don't want to do so can simply go to the FMCSA website and download a Medical Examination Report for Commercial Driver Fitness Determination certificate.  The website also includes the Medical Examiner Certificate.  Drivers and doctors can then use these templates to forge their own fake medical certificates.  There is no system in place to check who issued a medical certificate, and there is no registry to track medical examination results.

The feds need to wake up to the complex problems involving commercial vehicle driver health.  Too many lives are lost every year in accidents caused by truck drivers too sick to be at the wheel.

For years now, the Bureau of Land Management has allowed off-road races to be held on land that falls under its jurisdiction.  There have always been critics alleging that the agency was blind to the dangerous conditions at many of these races, where throngs of spectators inch closer to the racing “tracks,” placing their lives at serious risk.  Over the weekend, a deadly accident during the California 200 race in Lucerne Valley, proved these critics right.  A racer lost control of his pickup truck after a jump, and rolled into a crowd of people nearby.  Eight people lost their lives, and at least five were injured.

The accident has received national media attention, but the critics, who have long held that the BLM remains blind to the dangers in allowing these unregulated races on its land, have always been around.  These critics have found a new voice since the accident.  The BLM has admitted that it will now conduct a review of its current safety policies for permitted off-road races on land that falls under its jurisdiction.  It is also considering a review of the accident.

It's not just the BLM that's come under sharp criticism since the accident.  The promoter of the race, El Monte-based Mojave Desert Racing, has come under sharp fire for failing to ensure that spectators were standing at a safe distance away from the racing trucks.  An accident like this could have been prevented if, as the company’s own requirements spell out, the spectators were standing at a distance of at least 100 feet away from the trucks.  That didn't happen, and the spectators were too close to all the racing, with lethal consequences. 

The promoter also has a contract with the BLM, which requires that spectators be kept at a distance of at least 50 feet away from the trucks.  It's not just the failure of the promoter to follow these rules which Los Angeles truck accident lawyers will focus on, but also the failure of the agency to ensure that its rules were followed.

Last Friday, a collision between a South Lake City train and a car started a series of events that ended in a second, related accident, landing three people in the hospital.

The TRAX train was traveling east around 8 p.m. on Friday, and struck a vehicle that had crossed into the train's path.

Amazingly, the car's driver was not killed in the impact, despite turning left across the train's path. The 27-year-old woman and her car were dragged 300 feet before finally stopping. Firefighters had to cut open the car to remove her, but she was conscious when she was taken to the hospital. The accident occurred on the University of Utah Campus.

UTA procedures in the matter are clear. The TRAX operator is to be given a test for drugs and alcohol, and will be on paid leave until the university police complete their investigation. While there were people traveling on the train and the accident was quite serious, nobody was hurt and the delay was minimal.

"Those trains are so big and heavy, people on board would only have felt a bump," said a UTA official.

Shortly after the impact, a UTA truck responding to the accident ran a red light, which caused the second accident. It ultimately lead to a four car pileup on the eastern and southbound lanes in the area.

UTA trucks are equipped with warning flashers, but they are yellow, not blue and white emergency lights.

The trucking accident was caused when the truck was hit by a northbound car, which threw the maintenance vehicle into another car in the left-turn lane. The fourth vehicle rear-ended the turn lane car a moment later.

Five people were injured in this secondary accident, two of whom were taken to nearby hospitals with minor injuries. The other drivers were able to be treated at the scene instead of requiring hospital attention.

UTA has said the driver will be cited for violating the red light and causing the accident.