The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that the January 2008 fatal crash of a motorcoach near Victoria, Texas, was caused by the driver’s loss of control of the vehicle after he fell asleep at the wheel. The 42-year-old driver drifted off the road, but then reacted by oversteering the vehicle once he regained awareness.  The driver subsequently lost control of the motorcoach and it overturned on its right side.

One passenger was fatally injured, 17 passengers sustained major injuries, and the driver and 29 passengers received minor injuries. The Safety Board found that passengers were injured by partial ejections from the motorcoach and by striking objects and other passengers inside the motorcoach when it overturned.

On the morning of January 2, 2008, a 2005 Volvo motorcoach operated by Capricorn Bus Lines, Inc., under International Charter Services, Inc.’s operating authority, was traveling northbound on U.S. Highway 59 near Victoria, Texas. The motorcoach, en route from Monterrey, Mexico, to Houston, Texas, was carrying 47 passengers. Approximately 5 miles south of Victoria, the driver fell asleep, partially ran off the road, and then, after overcorrecting, lost control of the motorcoach which overturned on its right side. Within five minutes, a northbound pickup truck struck the underside of the motorcoach.

Major safety issues identified by this accident investigation focused on driver fatigue; lack of Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA)oversight of passenger motor carriers in the areas of operating authority, leasing agreements, scope of operating authority violations, safety rating methodology, and the New Entrant Safety Assurance Program; and registration and use of non-Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS)-compliant, passenger-carrying vehicles in commercial motor carrier operations in the United States.

“When we looked at the specific chain of events that led to this tragic accident, we also found numerous holes in the federal regulatory environment that allows a non-compliant motorcoach to be registered and operated on U.S. roadways,” said NTSB Chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman. “The traveling public should expect that any motorcoach they ride complies with all of the safety criteria imposed on every other commercial passenger vehicle within our borders.”

As a result of its investigation, the NTSB issued 19 safety recommendations: one to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), 11 to the FMCSA, two to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), and to the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP); and one each to the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA), the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA), and the International Registration Plan (IRP). This report reclassifies one previously issued recommendation to the FMCSA and also reiterates two previously issued recommendations to the FMCSA.

Among the recommendations, the NTSB urges NHTSA and FMCSA to work in conjunction with CBP and implement a process to detect motor carriers operating motorcoaches or other passenger-carrying commercial motor vehicles that do not meet U.S. safety standards. Once detected, these non-compliant vehicles should be placed out of service.

In addition, the NTSB urges the FMCSA to deny or revoke operating authority for commercial interstate motor carriers who fail to disclose any prior operating relationship with another motor carrier, prior operations as another motor carrier, or previously holding a different US DOT number.

A synopsis of the accident investigation report, including the findings, probable cause, and safety recommendations, can be found on the Board Meetings page of the NTSB’s Web site . The complete report will be available on the website in several weeks.

Add an on-board computer or texting device to the mix – and you have a recipe for disaster.

The Department of Transportation is kicking off a Distracted Driving Summit today to discuss the effects of texting while driving and other distractions behind the wheel. According to The New York Times, however, the trucking industry has already weighed in on the subject, saying the trucking industry should be exempted.

This despite a study from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, which found that truck drivers who used on-board dispatch computers faced a 10 times greater risk of crashing, nearly crashing or wandering from their lane than truckers who did not use the devices. The risk was 23 times greater for those who texted while driving.

Slack & Davis truck accident attorneys have witnessed the tragic results of truck driver fatigue and distractions behind the wheel. We urge state and federal regulators and elected officials to pursue legislation and guidelines that promote safety over convenience. — Mike Davis

In addition to the increased severity of injury when a vehicle weighing tens of thousands of pounds collides with a vehicle weighing only a few thousand pounds, truck wrecks differ from car wrecks in several other significant respects. Trucking companies and truckers are controlled by an extensive framework of federal and state regulations and, as a general rule, trucking companies and truckers are in violation of these regulations every day. Truck wreck cases also require much more investigation into the pre-wreck conduct of both the truck driver and the trucking company, the driver’s training, and the condition of the vehicle than would ordinarily be involved in a routine car wreck case. In addition, there are critical, time-sensitive aspects to investigation and discovery in truck crash cases that require prompt attention and thorough investigation.

To learn more about this topic, download the whitepaper, “Handling the Commercial Truck Crash Case,”  written by attorney Mike Davis and presented at the August 2009 Car Crash Seminar sponsored by The University of Texas School of Law.

This report is especially timely – released just days after three construction workers died in a scaffold accident on an Austin construction site. Two of the workers fell 11 to 13 stories while the third fell a shorter distance onto the roof of a seven-story parking garage.

Based on cases reviewed and handled by Slack & Davis, scaffold failures occur far too frequently. According to the Center for Construction Research and Training, formerly known as The Center to Protect Workers’ Rights (CPWR), each year more than 60 workers are killed by falls from scaffolds, which is about 20 percent of the construction industry’s fatal falls. Causes range from poorly constructed scaffolds to poor or nonexistent safety training. The personal injury attorneys at Slack & Davis invite you to learn more about proper scaffold safety in Scaffold Safety Hazard Alert , published by the CPWR.

Building Austin, Building Injustice outlines these key findings about local construction site workers and working conditions:

• Poverty level wages. Forty-five percent of surveyed construction workers earned poverty level wages. In addition, nearly half of construction workers reported not having enough financial resources to support their families.
• Failure to be paid. One in five workers reported being denied payment for their construction work in Austin.
• Fifty percent of construction workers reported not being paid overtime, and for many this resulted in the inability to pay for food and housing.
• Few employment benefits. The large majority of construction workers lacked health insurance (76%), pensions (81%), sick days (87%) or vacation days (77%).
• High rates of dangerous and unsafe working conditions. One in five surveyed construction workers has suffered a workplace injury that required medical attention. Sixty-four percent of surveyed workers lacked basic health and safety training, and many were forced to provide their own safety equipment (47% of residential construction workers provided their own hard hats).
• Death on the job. In 2007, 142 construction workers died in Texas, more than any other state in the country.
• Denied legal protections. Employers frequently misclassified workers as independent contractors instead of employees, thus stripping them of their rights to overtime pay, workers’ compensation coverage, benefits, and shifting the burden of payroll taxes to the worker. Survey results showed that 38% of construction workers were misclassified as independent contractors.
• The study asserts that general contractors and developers have a particularly important role to play as industry trendsetters by ensuring safe and humane working conditions on their worksites.

The full study is available online.