The tragic 2014 truck accident that left 30 Rock comedian Tracy Morgan with a serious brain injury may be the incident that prompts federal legislators to adopt tougher safety standards for trucks driving on highways and interstates.
Morgan was injured on June 7, 2014 when a limousine van, in which he was a passenger, was rear ended by a Wal-Mart truck on the New Jersey Turnpike in Cranbury Township. Another comedian in the van, James “Jimmy Mack” NcNair, was fatally injured in the accident while nine others were injured. The collision with the van lead to chain-reaction collisions with a total of six vehicles occupied by 21 people.
Morgan and some of the others injured in the accident have already reached a confidential settlement of their claims with Wal-Mart. The driver of the truck has been charged with vehicular homicide and assault by auto.
At a hearing on the accident on August 11, 2015, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials said they have determined that the driver of the Wal-Mart truck was driving 65 miles per hour in a 45 miles per hour zone at the time of the collision, and that the truck did not slow down when it entered the 45 mph construction zone. Moreover, the Wal-Mart truck driver had driven 800 miles overnight to the company’s distribution center before starting his delivery, and had been awake for more than 28 hours at the time of the crash. They said that the probable cause of the crash was the truck driver’s fatigue, which resulted in his delayed reaction to slowing for traffic ahead of him.
Investigators with the NTSB recommended that Wal-Mart improve fatigue management systems for its drivers and install better vehicle warning systems. Wal-Mart currently has forward collision avoidance technology in its trucks, but it only functions when the trucks are in cruise control mode.
Shortly before the NTSB hearing on the accident, a bill was introduced in the U.S. Senate that would modernize truck safety standards called the Truck Safety Act. The Cat is intended to reduce the number of accidents on highways across the country by taking advantage of new technologies. Moreover, the Act proposes to better protect victims of truck accidents by raising insurance coverage minimums for trucks.
If adopted, the bill would promote improved truck safety in three basic ways. It would require the Secretary of Transportation to conduct a study of the effects of excessive commuting — like the Wal-Mart driver’s 800 mile drive to his distribution center. It would require the Transportation Department to adopt rules requiring commercial vehicles to have crash avoidance systems that can warn of forward collisions and lane departures, and it would require the Department to adopt rules requiring commercial vehicles to have speed limiting devices to prevent speeding.
The bill also proposes increasing the amount of insurance that trucks must carry, from $750,000 to $1.5 million. Lastly, if passed, the Act will require employers to compensate truck drivers for hours worked, instead of miles driven.
The proposed legislation will not have any impact on previous claims made as a result of truck accidents, but it would address some of the shortcomings in our current truck regulations.
