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Even as the most recent data shows a rate of 5.5 percent unemployment in the U.S., a report prepared by The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) for the American Trucking Associations (ATA) shows the industry has some 35,000 unfilled truck driver jobs. It’s likely that the shortage was not as noticeable during the economic recession as trucking volume plummeted….
Each year, the National Transportation Safety Board issues its 10 Most Wanted List of Transportation Safety Improvements aimed at reducing transportation accidents and saving lives. It’s nice to see that four of the 10 items would impact the safety of commercial trucks. Because of their size and the sheer number of commercial trucks on our roads, 18-wheelers pose a…
It may be hard to believe, but it’s been 30 years since our government has required an increase in the minimum amount of insurance for motor carriers, which includes both large and small trucking companies alike. The federally mandated $750,000 minimum established in 1985 is the same today despite significant price jumps for everything from medical care to postage…
The rising rate of Texas traffic fatalities involving three or more deaths is alarming: 72 such accidents in 2010; 101 in 2012 and 148 last year, according to an in-depth report by the Houston Chronicle. Through mid-July of this year, the newspaper said 81 people had died in triple tragedies on Texas highways, and it points out that Texas…
Deaths among those working the nation’s oil and gas fields have risen at an alarming rate, the Associated Press has found. At least 598 workers died on the job between 2002 and 2007, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. During that period, the number of deaths per year rose by around 70 percent, from 72 victims in…
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the city attorney is suing a leading credit card dispute resolution service, accusing it of favoring industry and stacking the system against consumers in debt collection cases. The suit, filed by the office of City Attorney Dennis Herrera late last month in San Francisco Superior Court, alleges that National Arbitration Forum, one of…
Exxon, the most profitable company in the history of the world (earning $40.61 billion last year), recently enjoyed a U.S. Supreme Court ruling which slashed roughly $2 billion of punitive damages awarded against it in 1994 over the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. The plaintiffs – over 32,000 Alaskans – have now asked the court to award $488 million…
A jury in Austin today awarded truck driver Louis Martinez more than $267,000 in a suit arising out of his termination by a trucking company after he refused to drive with an unsafe load. Martinez was terminated by his employer, Safeshred, last year after refusing to haul a load of steel shelves from Austin to San Antonio. He testified…
There’s a good op-ed online in today’s Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi by insurance-defense lawyer Alex Alston (certainly no bomb-throwing liberal trial lawyer) about how that state’s high court has shifted to protecting businesses and insurers over injured consumers. Switch the states and names and he could as well be describing the Texas Supreme Court. Notable among Alston’s comments are…
Allegations of corruption and shaky oversight are plaguing the construction industry following two fatal crane collapses in New York City earlier this year. Critics point to failures at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in explaining the deaths of at least 72 workers in crane-related accidents since 2006. For its part, the construction industry maintains that it has a…
