FMCSR GUIDE | Truck Accident Lawyers Group
Truck Accident Lawyer Guide to Understanding How Federal Regulations Apply to Semi-Truck Accidents.
Truck accident law is complicated. This Guide provides a basic understanding of how the federal regulations and FMCSR are used by experienced truck accident lawyers to help injury victims who had a car accident with a Semi-truck. It also analyzes the reasons that large truck crashes happen.
This guide discusses how federal regulations require truck drivers and motor carriers to comply with regulations issued by the Department of Transportation (DOT) through its administrative agency, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). The regulations are the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSR).
When a truck accident happens and causes injury to a person, the injured person can have a right to bring a legal claim for their injuries and financial losses. These are called damages. These damages can include claims for economic losses and noneconomic losses.
The normal person injured by a truck driver has their life turned upside down. They become injured, can’t work, and can’t pay their bills. You can lose your car, your house, and your spouse because of someone else’s carelessness. We are the truck accident personal injury attorneys who will not let that happen to you.
When you hire Truck Accident Lawyers Group (TALG) you know that you have a gladiator on your side. TALG is associated with Bull Attorneys®. No matter how big they are we can take them down and get money to restore your life to what it was before the accident.
Our truck accident attorneys have settled hundreds of millions of dollars for car and truck accident clients since 1983. Our track record and results speak for themselves.
In a normal truck accident claim involving a negligent truck driver and trucking company there are three types of basic damages that can be recovered. They are:
- Economic damages.
Economic damages include compensation to pay you for losses with medical bills, wage loss, future medical treatment and future wage and economic loss. It includes anything that can be mathematically calculated to arrive at a number for the lost amount. - Noneconomic damages.
Noneconomic damages include compensation to pay you for subjective losses which cannot be mathematically calculated like pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, loss of time, scarring and disfigurement. - Punitive damages.
Punitive damages are called exemplary damages and are usually awarded when a claim has been made that the truck driver or motor carrier acted recklessly, wantonly, willfully, maliciously, or fraudulently. These damages help a truck accident lawyer bring evidence to the jury about prior bad acts showing a pattern of disregard for human life.
The normal truck injury victim is the driver or occupant of another passenger vehicle or motorcycle, a pedestrian, and can include truck drivers where two large trucks collide. The injured person must prove negligence of the other driver. In most cases, there are additional persons and businesses who may be at fault and owe money to the person harmed.
The usual secondary defendant is the employer of the driver, typically the motor carrier or trucking company. Sometimes, additional claims exist against other persons or businesses.
Other persons and businesses who may be at fault and can be sued are:
- Loading companies.
Trucking companies may send their driver to pick up preloaded containers of freight and cargo in preloaded containers. When overloaded or improperly loaded with uneven weight distribution it can cause the tractor-trailer to shift across the roadway, rollover, or jackknife.
- Maintenance and repair companies.
Safety equipment like tires, brakes, braking systems and other safety systems must be inspected daily and periodically. If negligently maintained and repaired it can cause truck accidents.
- Manufacturing companies.
Manufacturing companies who build negligent safety parts can be responsible to pay for your injuries.
- Dispatchers.
When a negligent dispatcher dispatches a truck driver who is out of legal hours to drive or sends the truck driver into a known area with bad storm or wind conditions and fails to reroute them or orders them to stop driving the dispatcher is negligent and can be sued.
- Brokers.
Brokers are middlemen who arrange for the shipment of freight, cargo, and goods. If the broker negligently fails to review the safety record of a chosen motor carrier, they are negligent and can be sued.
The reason you add additional negligent parties is for two main reasons.
- Additional negligent parties may have more insurance coverage to help pay for your losses and your injuries.
- If you have any comparative fault, the addition of more negligent persons and businesses can help reduce your percentage of fault which allows you to get a higher financial recovery since you cannot collect for your percentage of fault.
In a normal car-truck accident case it is important to understand that the insurance company for the trucking company will send out their insurance investigators, defense lawyers and accident reconstruction experts immediately to the accident scene to look for evidence to shift fault and blame away from the trucking company and turn the fault back towards the injured person.
It is equally important to have your own truck accident attorney to view the scene to prove fault of the trucking company and to preserve evidence from the scene of the accident. An experienced truck accident lawyer will develop evidence to help you win your truck injury claim.
Most lawyers are not personal injury attorneys nor are they truck accident lawyers. In the entire United States, there are only a handful of real trucking attorneys in each state that actually understand the complexity of a truck accident case. Half of those lawyers will work for injured plaintiffs and the other half work as defense lawyers for the trucking industry.
The truck accident attorneys at Truck Accident Lawyers Group (TALG) are experienced truck accident injury lawyers who have spent decades studying how to win truck accident cases. We have settled hundreds of millions of dollars of cases involving cars and trucks. Our experience is strictly from being trained by older experienced trucking attorneys. This training comes from mentoring relationships.
Our truck injury attorneys learned from and were mentored by Bradley A. Pistotnik who has authored seminars for the Kansas Bar Association and a book entitled Truck Accidents Kill. The mentoring process teaches the younger lawyer with hands on skills to build the trucking case, depose witnesses and management people and learn how to litigate a commercial trucking case.
We help truck injury victims get financial compensation for all injuries and losses they have from a severe accident caused by a negligent truck driver. There is never any fee charged unless we win. We help with every step of your case from start to finish. We do all of the following:
- Investigate the accident scene.
- Send out spoliation letters to stop the trucking company, truck driver and insurance carrier from destroying, altering, or modifying evidence.
- We file claims with your insurance company for Personal Injury Protection (PIP) benefits.
- We file claims with the negligent truck driver’s insurance carrier and the trucking company’s insurance carrier.
- We look for additional negligent parties who may owe a legal obligation to you to pay for your injuries.
- We sent out FOIA letters to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to get the Motor Carrier Safety Profile including all of their violation history, find civil penalties and fines against the motor carrier in the past, and obtain their monthly safety history because this helps us bring additional claims for negligence and punitive damage claims.
- We write settlement offers to the insurance company attempting to settle without a lawsuit and if the settlement does not work out, we immediately file a lawsuit on your behalf.
You can call us for a free consultation at 316-330-9200 24 hours a day, seven days a week or write to us on our contact page. We never charge a legal fee unless we win.
What is a Reportable Truck Accident?
Part 390.5T of the FMCSR define a reportable “crash” and “accident” as an occurrence involving a commercial motor vehicle (CMV) in interstate or intrastate commerce in which a vehicle was towed from the scene; a fatality occurred or a person was injured and required immediate medical treatment away from the crash scene.
What is a Commercial Motor Vehicle?
Part 390.5 defines a commercial motor vehicle (CMV) to be any self-propelled or towed motor vehicle used on a highway in interstate commerce to transport passengers or property when the vehicle:
- Has a gross vehicle weight rating or gross combination weight rating or gross vehicle weight or gross combination weight of 10,001 pounds or more; or
- Is designed or used to transport more than 8 passengers (including the driver) for compensation; or
- Is designed or used to transport more than 15 passengers, including the driver, and is not used to transport passengers for compensation: or
- Is used in transporting material found by the Secretary of Transportation to be hazardous under 49 USC 5103 and transported in a quantity requiring placarding under regulations by prescribed by the Secretary under 49 CFR, subtitle B, chapter I, subchapter C.
What are the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations?
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSRs) set forth minimum safety standards for motor carriers and drivers to follow. The importance of these regulations to you and truck accident lawyers is the federal requirement that all employers of truck drivers should be knowledgeable of and comply with all regulations applicable to the motor carrier’s operations.
The FMCSR has an effect on how long drivers are allowed to drive, how a motor carrier must qualify a new hire truck driver and train and supervise them, how much weight they can transport, how much liability insurance must be carried and requires certain safety plans and vehicle maintenance schedules. The purpose is to prevent injuries and fatalities to the public.
Part 390 requires that every driver and employee involved in motor carrier operations shall be instructed regarding all applicable regulations. Trucking attorneys use these regulations to improve their chances of winning a negligence claim against both the truck driver and motor carrier because almost no one follows the rules and very few truck drivers know and understand what the rules actually mean.
What are the CSA BASICs?
The CSA BASICs are Seven Behavior Analysis and safety Improvement Categories. These categories help the DOT and FMCSA analyze the safety performance of a motor carrier and measure their safety against other motor carriers. They require law enforcement to stop truck drivers and do roadside safety inspections. When the motor carrier gets too many violations, it affects their SMS results on safety.
The seven BASICs track repeat unsafe behaviors for truck drivers like:
- Unsafe driving.
- Speeding.
- Using a hand-held cell phone.
- Reckless driving.
- Improper lane change.
- Inattention.
Crash Indicator. The Crash Indicator BASIC helps identify safety problems of a motor carrier. This category is not public and can only be obtained by a FOIA request to the FMCSA. It is known that noncompliance with the BASICs leads to an increased risk of being involved in crashes and is used to evaluate the safety of a motor carrier.
Hours-of-Service (HOS) Compliance. The Hours-of-Service BASIC follows Part 395 and sets maximum driving times to ensure that truck drivers are alert, awake and can take evasive action to avoid a crash with another motor vehicle.
Vehicle Maintenance. The vehicle maintenance BASIC requires pre and post trip inspections and requires the motor carrier to record defects in the truck and repair them prior to operating. This is to comply with Parts 392 and 396 of the FMCSRs.
Controlled Substance/Alcohol. The controlled substance/alcohol BASIC helps the FMCSA monitor truck drivers for alcohol, illegal drugs and over-the-counter and prescription medication misuse that can affect the truck driver’s abilities to drive safely and is meant to help prevent injuries and deaths to other motorists. It relates to Parts 382 and 392 of the FMCSRs.
Hazardous Materials (HM) Compliance. Hazardous Materials (HM) Compliance is a BASIC that requires a motor carrier to specially mark, label and placard loads with hazardous materials under multiple FMCSRs 171, 172, 173, 177, 178, 179 and 180. This is to protect the general motoring public from extreme disasters and from crashes with a truck carrying HM.
Driver Fitness. The Driver Fitness BASIC is to make sure the motor carrier maintains a driver qualification file that meets Parts 383 and 391 of the FMCSRs. The BASIC requires files to contain the CDL, medical certificate, state driving records, annual reviews of driving records and employment applications. This is to make sure unsafe drivers are weeded out.
What is an Alert to a Motor Carrier under CSA Safety Measurement System?
When a motor carrier receives an Alert, it means that the FMCSA has determined that motor carrier’s violation rate of the CSA BASICs is over the established intervention threshold and needs corrective action from the motor carrier. Truck accident attorneys use this Alert to prove reckless or willful conduct on the part of the motor carrier.
What is the Safety Management Cycle (SMC)?
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) uses an investigative process called the Safety Management Cycle (SMC). This cycle helps both the motor carriers and the FMCSA enforcement officers ensure that the motor carrier has sufficient safety management controls to ensure safe operations. These SMCs are meant to help motor carriers comply with the CSA BASICs.
The SMC includes 6 Safety Management Processes (SMPs). The six SMPs are:
- Policies and Procedures.
The policies and procedures SMP applies to motor carriers and their employees and review how they behave looking to the CSA BASICs. The point of the policies and procedures is to ensure the motor carrier has a safety plan that follows the FMCSR and that it actually implemented, followed, and enforced the safety plan. - Roles and Responsibilities.
The roles and responsibilities SMP means that the safety plan must define which employee or management person in the motor carrier carriers out certain functions of the safety plan. - Qualification and Hiring.
The qualification and hiring SMP is to ensure that motor carriers actually screen new truck driver applicants, qualify them on driving skills, conduct background checks, motor vehicle record checks, and communicate with prior employers to determine their accident history and driving ability for the prior employer. - Training and Communication.
The Training and Communication SMP investigates how the motor carrier actually communicates the expectation of truck drivers and management personnel to ensure they are trained in how to follow the FMCSR. - Monitoring and Tracking.
The Monitoring and Tracking SMP is to ensure the motor carrier has a system in place to monitor and track truck drivers, dispatchers, operations personnel, and other safety personnel which gives real data on performance of drivers and management to be safe in the overall company performance. - Meaningful Action.
The Meaningful Action SMP is to ensure the motor carrier has a disciplinary policy in place and a policy that rewards good behavior with rewards and bonuses. The purpose is to improve the carrier’s overall safety performance and reduce violations, crashes, injuries, and fatalities.
Experienced truck accident injury attorneys understand the SMC and the SMPs. When a request is made for the motor carrier’s Company Safety Profile and monthly safety file on violations, the knowledgeable lawyer can take each of the processes to prove the motor carrier does not properly follow a safety plan. This establishes negligence and disregard for the federal regulations.
What are the Hiring, Training and Supervision Requirements under the FMCSR?
The FMCSA regulations under the FMCSR require that motor carriers comply with the regulations. Part 392.1(a) requires that every motor carrier, its officers, agents, representatives, and employees responsible for management, maintenance operation, or driving of commercial motor vehicles, or the hiring, supervising, training, assigning, or dispatching of drives, shall be instructed in and comply with the FMCSR.
The Safety Management Cycle (SMC) and Safety Management Processes (SMPs) are an extension of that regulatory mandate. This is because it is known that the violation rates of motor carriers who violate the CSA BASICs leads to crashes, injuries and fatalities. The SMPs help motor carriers hire, train, and supervise truck drivers properly.
Driver qualification is an important aspect of overall safety and the carriers must follow Part 391 to make sure drivers are qualified to drive. This is because motor carriers are responsible for making sure that their truck drivers know and comply with the FMCSRs and the Hazardous Materials Regulations (HMR). Part 391.21 outlines all the factors that must be in the driver’s application.
The DOT issued a bulletin called “On Guard” in January of 1997, warning motor carriers about ensuring drivers were qualified. The bulletin warns motor carriers that “mistakenly assuming that if a driver possesses a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL), he or she is a trained and experienced commercial vehicle driver. This is not true and is a very dangerous mistake.” Vol. 225, No. 1.
What are FMCSA Interventions and Enforcement Actions?
The FMCSA evaluates the safety performance violation rate of a motor carrier compared to other motor carriers in its same class of trucking. The predetermine thresholds are used for the motor carrier industry. Once the BASICs scores rise to an unacceptable leave the FMCSA will take interventions against the motor carrier.
The types of interventions and enforcement actions are:
- Warning letter.
A warning letter from the FMCSA gives notice to the motor carrier that it has a safety violation rate above the acceptable threshold and the motor carrier must take corrective action to prevent further violations. - Increased roadside enforcement.
When a motor carrier has a violation rate of a BASIC over the acceptable threshold the system tells enforcement officers nationwide to flag the motor carrier and it has been placed on the “inspect list” so the enforcement officer is aware that inspection should be heightened in the roadside inspection. - Focused off-site investigation.
This is where the motor carrier’s violation of a particular category of the BASICs like Driver Fitness has a high violation rate which then causes the enforcement officer to focus on Driver Fitness when doing roadside inspections or other investigations. - Focused on-site investigation.
This is where the investigation by an enforcement officer concentrates the on-site investigation into the assigned category that has poor performance in one of the BASICs. - Cooperative safety plan.
This is where the FMCSA has performed a focused investigation and requests that the motor carrier enter into a cooperative safety plan to improve the area of safety. - Notice of violation.
A notice of violation is where the FMCSA sends a formal written notice of violation to the motor carrier requiring the carrier to improve the safety in the deficient area of the BASICS. - Comprehensive on-site investigation.
This is where the FMCSA performs an audit of the motor carrier when it has a very poor BASIC score, or following an accident, complaint, or a larger safety compliance issue. - Notice of claim, penalty, and settlement agreement.
When the violation rate of a motor carrier becomes too high, the FMCSA will require the carrier to create a formal plan of correction. They will be required to pay a fine or civil penalty and sign a settlement agreement to follow the FMCSR or can lose their DOT license to operate.
When our truck accident lawyers find these violations and enforcement actions, we use them to bring additional legal claims against the motor carrier which allows us to bring claims for punitive damages to punish the motor carrier for willful or reckless disobeyance of the law. This can make your legal claims have a much larger financial compensation.
What are the Critical Events and Reasons that Cause Truck Accidents?
The FMCSA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) jointly conducted the Large Truck Crash Causation Study (LTCCS) to examine the reasons for serious crashes with large trucks over 10,001 pounds. The study analyzed 120,000 large truck crashes between 2001 and 2003. It also included 963 crashes from 1,123 accidents that were not large trucks.
The study coded critical events and critical reasons for the crashes. They found three critical events for accidents which were:
- Running out of travel lane (32%).
- Vehicle loss of control (29%).
- Colliding with the rear end of another vehicle in the same lane as the large truck (22%).
Critical reasons for the truck accidents were:
- Non-performance.
This is where the driver fell asleep, was disabled or physically impaired.
- Recognition.
This is where the driver was inattentive, distracted or failed to observe the approaching hazard.
- Decision.
This is where the driver was driving too fast, misjudged speed of other vehicles, or followed other vehicles too closely.
- Performance.
This is where the driver error was from panic, overcompensation or exercised poor directional control in trying to avoid the accident.
What are the top ten factors causing large truck crashes?
- Large truck braking problems were a significant problem causing accidents.
- Traffic flow interruption like congestion or an earlier accident which means the truck driver is not carefully observing approaching hazards and slowing down before impact.
- Prescription drug use affects the driver’s ability to drive safely.
- Traveling too fast for conditions which led to truck crashes with another vehicle.
- Driver unfamiliar with the roadway.
- Roadway problems which would be construction zones, poor pavement, or other roadway defects.
- Driver was required to stop and did not stop for a traffic control device like a red light, stop sign, yield sign or crosswalk.
- Over-the-counter drug use affected the drivers’ ability to drive safely.
- Inadequate surveillance of the area around the truck for other vehicles in blind spots.
- Fatigued driving where the truck driver drove too long or too many days or hours and became fatigued affecting their ability to operation a CMV safely.
What are the Different Types of Trucking Industry Accidents that Our Truck Accident Lawyers Handle?
Our truck accident lawyers concentrate on helping truck injury victims bring claims against negligent truck drivers and motor carriers to receive financial compensation.
The different types of Trucking Industry accidents we handle are:
1. General transportation of nonhazardous property.
This includes transportation of general property that is not hazardous and is not considered as household goods. This is the general cargo that is transported across the entire United States by motor carriers throughout the 48 states.
2. Delivery driver accidents.
Delivery is a wide category because it can include the delivery of purchased property like Amazon, UPS, and DHL transport. It can also include trucks making wholesale delivery of beer and liquor. Another category is the delivery of food to consumers through companies like Instacart. Click here for Delivery driver discussion.
3. Uber and Lyft accidents. Uber and Lyft accidents arise from injury accidents where either the Uber or Lyft driver was negligent and caused a motor vehicle accident or you are riding as a passenger in an Uber or Lyft passenger vehicle and another negligent driver crashes into the vehicle you are in. Click here for Uber & Lyft page.
4. Livestock and cattle hauling accidents. Livestock and cattle hauling is a completely different industry. Many of the brokers and motor carriers hauling livestock and cattle wrongly claim agricultural exemptions from the maximum hours driving rules under Part 395 of the FMCSR. Click here for Livestock and Cattle Hauling accident page.
5. Farming and agricultural industry accidents. Accidents involving farming and agricultural activities fall under the agricultural exemption of the FMCSR for certain types of activities, but not all. Click here for Farming and Agriculture accident page.
6. Construction industry truck accidents. Construction trucks, equipment and vehicles present a unique area of trucking that has some different legal aspects to proving negligence. Click here for Construction industry truck accident page.
7. Oil and gas industry accidents. Oil and gas industry trucks and vehicles present some extremely hazardous accidents because of oil cargo tanks and other unique types of vehicles that require a somewhat different analysis. Click here for Oil and gas industry accident page.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an electronic logging device (ELD)?
An electronic logging device (ELD) is a technology that automatically records a driver’s driving time and monitors the vehicle’s engine capturing data about whether the engine is running, whether it is moving and the duration of engine hours. It allows law enforcement to review the driver’s hours of service by viewing the display screen.
Can a driver or motor carrier edit an ELD to change the log record?
The truck and motor carrier can edit the ELD, but they are legally required to maintain the original record to prove the ELD. Not all motor carriers and truck drivers follow this legal regulation under Part 395.30(f).
How long is a motor carrier required to preserve their ELD driver logs?
Part 395.8(k)(1) requires the motor carrier to retain the records of duty status in driver logs and ELDs for a period of not less than six months from the date received.
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With physical offices in Kansas and Texas, the Truck Accident Lawyers Group is ready to represent injured people who have had a motor vehicle and truck accident anywhere in the United States. Make sure you hire an experienced truck accident lawyer who understands the safety rules under the FMCSR.
