Truck driver Renato Velasquez of the Chicago area had been behind the wheel for more than 35 hours on Monday with just 3 1/2 hours of sleep when he failed to notice flashing emergency lights and stopped vehicles and plowed into a crash scene. The fatal crash killed a tollway worker and critically injured a state trooper who had been aiding an accident victim. Our deepest sympathies go out to the families and friends of the two people fatally injured on the job.
Renato Velasquez was charged with falsifying his logbook (which is supposed to be an accurate reflection of the hours driven and rest breaks taken by a trucker) and with operating a commercial motor vehicle while fatigued.
Velasquez’s attorney reportedly said that the driver simply didn’t see the flashing emergency lights, and that there was no evidence that Velasquez had fallen asleep behind the wheel. (Associated Press by way of the Houston Chronicle, 1/30/14) Well, that’s not good is it? You’ve been driving so long and entered such a profound state of highway hypnosis that while still awake you don’t notice prominent signals like flashing emergency lights. Then you crash.
That deadly accident on the interstate in northern Illinois prompted a state politician to take the opportunity to call on the FMCSA to get tougher on enforcing the rules on maximum driving hours for long haul truckers.
The Rules on Maximum Driving Hours and Rest Breaks
This past summer, new federal regulations for truckers took effect that doubled the number of required consecutive nights of sleep for long haul truckers. The trucking industry has protested and filed lawsuits, saying essentially that the new rules limit productivity and profits. The FMCSA (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration) has not indicated that it will back down on the more stringent requirements. But our Houston truck crash injury attorneys point out that the FMCSA has been taken to task by safety advocates for not doing enough to enforce existing regs and actually oversee commercial vehicle safety.
A study by sleep researchers at Washington State University was just released on Thursday that supports the new regulations (and incidentally the need to enforce them). The study focused on more than 100 truck drivers. Researchers concluded that the drivers who didn’t follow the new regs reported greater fatigue, showed more lane deviation while driving, and suffered more lapses in attention. Their study suggests that the stronger requirements for more frequent rest breaks will prevent about 1,400 truck wrecks annually and save 19 lives per year, while only affecting those truckers who drive long hauls totaling 60 or 70 hours per week or more.
The new rules that took effect last summer might not be as strong as you believe. They only require that a truck driver get two consecutive nights of sleep rather than one before he can reset the clock. And this only applies to those truckers who drive 60 hours over 7 days or 70 hours over 8 days. The rules also require that sleep breaks be between 1 and 5 a.m., rather than at any time of day.
Our Houston truck crash injury attorneys have written several articles on the topic of the hazards posed by fatigued truck drivers, and we would call for even more stringent regulations. But until enforcement catches up with the rules, there seems little point in additional FMCSA rulemaking.
Texas Data Indicates that Driver Fatigue Might Indeed Lead to More Crashes
Data from around Texas would tend to support the sleep researchers’ assertion that long stretches behind the wheel compromise a truck driver’s ability to drive safely. The booming shale oil fields in the Eagle Ford Shale and Permian Basin areas have seen huge increases in the amount of truck traffic, accompanied by alarming increases in the numbers of fatal truck accidents. The Houston truck crash injury attorneys at Denena Points, PC emphasize that in some counties, the numbers of fatal accidents have risen more than 1,000%.
Much of the growth in serious truck accident numbers has been attributed to truck driver fatigue. But truck drivers don’t just become fatigued and more accident prone from long stretches behind the wheel. Much of the increase in truck accident numbers in Texas oil regions has been attributed to truck drivers driving home after their shifts on the oil fields, which might last more than 22 hours.
Click the link to read about a disturbing fatal crash with a school bus attributed to driver fatigue that just killed three oil field workers in Corpus Christi.