Law: Tractor Trailer Truck Driver Fatigue

Tractor Trailer Truck Driver Fatigue

Written by http://www.monheit.com/truck/20041204061023.html

by: Michael Monheit, Esquire of Monheit Law, P.C. Toll Free: 866-761-1385

How current an issue is tractor trailer truck driver fatigue?

Truck driver fatigue is a very current issue and has been repparttar subject of recent regulatory activity. Truck driver fatigue is repparttar 119235 subject of new regulations issued by repparttar 119236 USDOT (U.S. Department of Transportation) through repparttar 119237 FMCSA branch, which handles motor carrier (trucking) issues . Pursuant to these rules, a tractor trailer truck driver may only drive 11 hours after 10 consecutive hours off. In addition, in order to prevent driver fatiugue, a tractor trailer truck driver may not drive more than 60 hours in any seven day period. If a driver takes 2.5 days off, he can clean his consecutive hours slate and start at 0 again.

Why not require even stricter time limits to prevent driver fatigue?

Another factor in preventing accidents is driver experience. If stricter guidelines were put in place immediately, there would be an insufficient number of experienced drivers. Thus, while decreasing repparttar 119238 number of accidents caused by tractor trailer truck driver fatigue, we would see an offset and even increase in total accidents due to those accidents caused by truck driver inexperience.

Are all hours logged, or just driving hours?

The Truckload Carriers Association has stated that drivers "understate their non-driving hours in their log books" and that to improve sales, companies expect their drivers to "wait, unload, and load at repparttar 119239 shipper's warehouses at no cost to repparttar 119240 shipper" and only then, begin logging time for their 11 hours. This may increase repparttar 119241 actual work hours by 50%, thus significantly increases repparttar 119242 risk of truck driver fatigue.

How common is tractor trailer driver fatiuge in causing accidents?

The NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) estimates that truck driver fatigue (lack of sleep, overwork) may be a factor in over a third of all large (semi, 18 wheeler) truck accidents. Further, repparttar 119243 NTSB found that truck driver fatigue was repparttar 119244 most likley cause in over 30% of crashes that were fatal to repparttar 119245 fatigued truck driver.

Attorney General John Ashcroft Warns Activist Judges

Written by Gary Revel

Recently U. S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said that activist judges were a threat to repparttar

national security of repparttar 119234

United States of America. Most people who heard this let it fly right over repparttar 119235

top of their heads. Some of us realized that it was a policy statement that should be understood as a warning to many.

When repparttar 119236 executive branch of our government decides that someone is a threat to our national security that person is taken out. They can be killed or put away in some other less lethal fashion but they become useless to whatever agenda they had before.

I can recall how Judge Battle and Judge Miller died of 'heart attacks' after it was learned that they intended to give James Earl Ray repparttar 119237 trial he had never had for his supposed assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Nobody can prove that they were killed but many know that a trial on repparttar 119238 matter would have shook repparttar 119239 very foundations of this country. Many believe that such a trial would have been a threat to our national security.

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