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I was handling a case with a truck driver who was
ran off the road and his truck flipped because the truck in front
of him another tractor-trailer,all of its lights were out
the electrical system was out; and it had stopped in the road at dusk, he didn't see him
until the last minute
and ran off the road.
I remember talking to that truck driver and saying,well, why didn't you
hit your brakes and stop in time? And he told me that his brakes were not
operating properly.
I started
thinking: here's two tractor trailers on the road. One
doesn't have the lights working - or any electrical system - the other doesn't have
the brakes working.
It made me realize that, my goodness, how many tractor trailers are on the road
that aren't safe?
And as I are start to research this it's actually shocking to me. The statistics are
about one in four tractor trailers on the road
have some type of out of service violation meaning they are illegal to be on the
road. When they are stopped at the roadside checks, at the way stations,
that they pull through and have inspections
they find that there's something wrong with them, it could be the brakes could be the
lights or anything that makes them illegal to be on the road. One in four trucks.
I did get my commercial driver's license i'd as i was handling more and more of
these cases
I thought it was important to really understand and to really get to the
truth of what happens in these cases and i can do that by understanding the parts
of the truck, the truck drivers training.
I also have a separate certification I've gotten for air brakes
it's a special program that
teaches you about the air brakes. A lot of cases involve brakes, and so now i have
that certification and i had my commercial driver's license certification,
air brakes, double triple and all the different add-ons that you can get - hazmat.
It has been really helpful to me to understand, and it also helps when i'm
sitting on their side of the table with a truck driver
and you might get kind of an attitude, "well who are you, mister lawyer?"
"... well good for you to say should inspect this or that, you've never driven
one of these trucks"
Sometimes people say that and I say, well, actually I have a commercial driver's license.
So it really helps me understand these cases
People call me the king of the road
people recognize me, "hey, I know you, you're the truck guy"
a lot of that's been because there is
few of us in
in the country that will handle
truck accident cases and not a handful of all types of other case. So, I've
got to be known for that. I lecture on the country, all over the country for
over a decade now to different lawyers about how to handle truck accident cases
So people have come to
know me. it's
something i'm proud of.