Unsafe Practices Among Truck Drivers and Trucking Companies Result in Dangerous Highway Travel

The following interview with Steve Laird is excerpted from an article published in The Dallas Morning News about the how unsafe practices among truck drivers and trucking companies have resulted in dangerous highway travel and tragic consequences for many families. You can read the complete article here.

In March 2002, Nelta Osborn was driving her rig for Celadon Trucking Service Inc. west along Interstate 30 in southwest Arkansas when another trucker radioed that a hose on her trailer was dragging the ground. Ms. Osborn pulled over and found a tiny hole had been worn in one of her air brake hoses. Her co-driver, husband Tom Osborn, stuck a toothpick in the hole and wrapped it with electrical tape, according to court records.

Back on the road, Mr. Osborn described the fix to a Celadon dispatcher. The dispatcher advised the trucker to get the hose fixed at a garage but remarked on his ingenuity: "Were you a Boy Scout?"

As they roared southwest along I-30 into Texas, the Osborns passed truck garages where they could have had the brake hose repaired or replaced, but they drove on. Just west of Texarkana, the hose failed, and the air brakes locked. The 18-wheeler screeched to a stop in the interstate's passing lane. Matthew Giuliano, a 23-year-old newly commissioned Army second lieutenant driving to Fort Hood for his first assignment, slammed into the back of the truck and was killed.

"If you look behind the curtain, you tend to see an industry that is paying truck drivers less because of the fierce competition," said Fort Worth attorney Steve Laird, who represented the Giuliano family in a lawsuit against Celadon. "And when truck drivers are not paid as well as they once were, they feel that there is an incentive to not only push the envelope but to sometimes break the rules."

In April 2005, a Waco jury found Indiana-based Celadon at fault and awarded the Giuliano family $17.5 million. Celadon settled the case by agreeing to pay the family $1.25 million, with no admission of liability. After the jury trial, Celadon chairman and chief executive officer Steve Russell extended condolences to the family and defended his company's business practices.

Contact us for more information on the Fort Worth, Dallas and Texas Law Offices of Steven C. Laird, P.C..