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Texas Injury Law Blog

• Texas Truck Accident Underride Kills & Paralyzes
  

  Truck accidents involving trailer underriding or under-running -- where a car or other passenger vehicle passes under a trailer being pulled by a truck tractor or "big rig" -- remain severe personal injury accident hazards to automobile passengers in Texas and elsewhere. Over the years, I have seen that catastrophic injuries -- including occupant death by decapitation, closed-head or brain injury, and spinal paralysis -- almost always result from these common tractor-trailer accidents.

  Further, the trucking industry has taken the position that since no federal law specifically requires side underride protection, there is no need for same -- despite the clear risk of serious injury or death from side underride collisions, which are more frequent than rear underrides. Thus, the law still fails, in large part, to protect the motoring public from this devastating auto accident hazard.

  Criticism that the trucking industry has ignored these dangers to motorists came to light recently in a Texas court, when a Panola County jury found that a tractor-trailer manufacturer was negligent in failing to protect the occupants of a car that rode under the side of a trailer as the trucker pulled out in front of oncoming traffic. The collision caused the death of the car driver, as well as serious closed-head (brain) injuries and paralysis to a passenger. The negligence or fault of the trucking company was based on its failure to block side underrides -- a relatively novel and mostly untested theory -- and resulted in a jury verdict of almost $39,000,000 in personal injury damages.

  Sadly, despite a federal law requiring truck trailers to have a rear underride guard or bar, many older trailers on our highways still lack this basic safety feature. Too, a scary reality is that, with the spread inland of Mexico-based truck traffic from the Mexico border, Texas, other border states, and eventually most of the country likely will see an increase in these always-serious wrecks. But, without stricter federal laws, jury verdicts will continue to be the only engine for change and improved motorist protection from these crashes.

  For an excellent resource for learning more about these tragic, yet all-too-frequent, types of auto accidents, as well as for research into many other highway safety issues, I recommend the IIHS (http://www.iihs.org/research/topics/trucks.html), or Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, as a place to start your research.

• Truck Accidents from Driver Fatigue Increasing
  

  Truck driver fatigue is a factor in 15% of truck accidents involving deaths and other injuries, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration -- the government agency generally in charge of promoting trucking safety. Despite that sad reality, in 2004 the federal government catered to the trucking industry and its lobby by changing the rules concerning hours that a trucker may drive, actually increasing the hours and resulting trucker fatigue hazard. Soon, even car accidents and SUV rollovers could be surpassed in frequency in Texas by fatigue-related truck accidents. In fact, I would not be surprised to see an increase in driver fatigue-related wrecks, particularly considering the influx of substandard Mexico trucks and their Mexico-trained (if at all) drivers.

  A recent Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) website article (http://www.iihs.org/research/topics/trucks.html -- see Vol. 41, No. 8) points out that since those new hours-in-service rules went into effect, truckers have been driving more hours and falling asleep more frequently. In fact, the IIHS stated that, in 2005, the proportion of truckers who reported falling asleep in the preceding month increased to 21%, from about 13% in 2003.

  In a related note, the IIHS also reported that the FMCSA has announced plans to require electronic recorders on trucks. Such a "black box" device will monitor hours that its truck driver is driving, thereby making it much more difficult for the trucker to hide his real driving time by "doctoring" or altering his logbook entries of hours driven, rests taken, and so on. (Ironically, the safety-minded IIHS itself has been pushing the federal government to require recorders in trucks for some 20 years.)

  With ever-increasing truck traffic as a result of "just-in-time" inventories, NAFTA rules allowing Mexico-based tractor-trailers onto American roads, and the further decline of the rail industry, I believe that the government should take immediate steps to lower -- and not raise -- the number of hours that a trucker can drive without rest. Please do feel free to contact me at any time (help@YantaLaw.com or 800-313-2555) if you would like more information on how you can join the fight against trucker fatigue and for improved trucking safety.

• Car Accident Rollovers Cause Severe Personal Injuries
  

  Car accidents causing the most severe personal injuries continue to occur in Texas at an increasing frequency in the form of SUV rollovers and similar auto accidents. Car accident rollovers occur in roughly 20% of vehicles in fatal crashes in the U.S., although they account for only about 3% of vehicles in reported wrecks; see National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2006-Traffic Safety Facts, 2004; Report no. DOT HS-809-919, published by the federal government. In fact, I recently read that, according to one report (http://www.iihs.org/research/fatality_facts/occupants.html) by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), more than one-half of all single-vehicle crash fatalities are rollover victims.

  Sport utility vehicle or SUV rollovers are the most common rollover wrecks; in fact, 62% of fatalities in SUV's were involved in SUV rollovers, compared to only 23% for car deaths and 45% for pickup truck deaths. With the huge increase in popularity of SUV's, there has been a commensurate increase in rollover crashes and personal injuries. However, until several recent south Texas (Duval County, Starr County and Zavala County, to name a few) jury awards of millions of dollars to victims of SUV rollovers and pickup rollovers became highly publicized, the auto industry seemed to take little action to utilize long-available technology to remedy the problem it long had known to exist.

  Now, to reduce rollover tendencies, some vehicles come equipped with electronic stability control (ESC) systems, basically consisting of sensors tied to brakes and engine control units that, along with a computer that constantly monitors the vehicle's responses to the driver's steering actions, apply the brakes to individual wheels when needed to bring the vehicle back to its intended path. I find it amazing that one study has found that ESC systems have reduced single-vehicle fatal crash involvement by 56% (http://www.iihs.org/research/qanda/rollover.html at fn. 7). I see hope in such an improvement.

• Roof Crush in Texas SUV Rollovers & Car Accidents
  

  Severe personal injuries -- often including spinal paralysis, closed head injury brain damage, and even death -- frequently result from roof crush that is sustained in rollover car accidents in Texas. In fact, of the more than 26,000 people seriously injured in rollover automobile accidents annually in our country, about one in four sustain their injuries in wrecks involving roof crush -- many in SUV rollovers. See the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) submission to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration dated December 19, 2001. Nonetheless, I believe that the auto industry seems to have accomplished little in making passenger vehicles' roofs stronger and safer for the motoring public.

  Even though the industry often blames occupant injury on the occupants' "dive into" the overturned roof in a SUV rollover crash, strength of the "safety cage" -- the structural elements in the perimeter of the passenger compartment -- still is an essential crashworthiness design component -- particularly in roof crush rollover accidents: Limiting intrusion -- whether at the roof, doors, firewall, floorboard or elsewhere -- into the passenger compartment's safety cage always is necessary to allow airbag and seatbelt restraint systems the space needed to prevent serious injury. For more data and details, and other safety-related facts, see the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) article at http://www.iihs.org/research/qanda/rollover.html, fn. 10.

  Especially in high-speed rollovers -- such as those common along the thousands of miles of Texas freeways and those of other states with speed limits of 70 miles per hour or more -- roof crush often causes catastrophic injuries with tragic results. And, with speed limits unlikely to be reduced any time soon because of the ever-increasing "rush" mentality of today's society, anything done to reduce the likeli