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(Transportation-News.com, June 16, 2012 ) Killeen, TX -- Accident reports often blame oilfield truck drivers for the collisions they cause. The truth is usually much more complex and leads back to trucking company management. Sketchy training for drivers and poor truck maintenance are just two of many factors that cause big rigs to be so dangerous.
"It's easy to blame truckers, said Craig Brown, an attorney who grew up in Karnes City and handles truck wreck cases statewide, "but they're often not the real problem. For these trucking companies, time is money … and it costs time and money to make sure drivers are properly trained, to make sure trucks are properly maintained."
For example, he said, it's not uncommon that oilfield drivers are forced into working a 20-hour shift and be provided a rig with bad brakes, bald tires and other defects and that would fail even the most cursory of safety inspections.
According to a story in the New York Times, these companies have been aware of this problem for some time. In a story published May 15, 2012, the Times reported over the last decade, more than 300 oilfield truck drivers have been killed. The number of other drivers who died in those wrecks is unknown, but it's likely far higher than the number of oilfield truck drivers who died.
In 2005, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that oilfield truck fatalities rose 15 percent from 2003 to 2004, and that the rate was steadily increasing. At the time, the CDC attributed the rise to longer shifts, inexperienced drivers and poorly maintained trucks.
"The CDC is dead-on," said Brown, "At the top of the food chain you find a lot of corner-cutting that causes our roads to be so deadly."
In Pennsylvania — a state where an oilfield boom has be underway for over a decade — the state police reports that 40 percent of 2,200 oil and gas industry trucks inspected from 2009 to this February were in such bad condition that they had to be taken off the roads. In Texas, the Department of Public Safety has found that up to 25 percent of all big rigs — not just oilfield trucks — fail routine safety inspections and have to be sidelined.
United States Department of Transportation statistics show that 1 out of 9 drivers involved in a collision with an 18 wheeler dies. A 2009 study of post-crash trucks showed that 55 percent had a mechanical violation and, incredibly, almost one-third of them had an "out of service" violation that should've kept the truck off the road completely. Hour of service and log rules are also frequently broken and that leads to many crashes. For example, 30 percent of truckers admit in surveys to falsifying logs.
Brown is involved in one Karnes County case where the truck lacked the simplest of emergency equipment required by law. "Really, there's just no excuse for that," he said. "These companies are making record profits. This drive for profits and lack of oversight encourages shortcuts and disregard for proper safety procedures.They must be held accountable for our crumbling county roads, and for the havoc they've wrecked among our friends and families."
You can reach Brown at 800-460-0606 or via his website: CraigBrownLaw.com.
Cappolino Dodd Krebs
Cheney Winslow
800.221.8424
winslow@attorneysonlineinc.com
Source: EmailWire.Com 
Source: EmailWire.com
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