The crash left one 18-wheeler demolished, the second 18-wheeler was pushed into four-wheel vehicles and the third 18-wheeler exited the highway and ended up in the woods. One 18-wheeler driver had to be cut from the cab of the wrecked big rig.

Eastbound lanes of I-20 were closed while crews cleaned up the debris and leaked diesel fuel. The wreck caused a huge traffic back-up on both the eastbound and westbound lanes of I-20 near Shreveport.

The 18-wheeler, marked with the company name Texas International Express LLC, was traveling north about 5 miles north of Pearl River when its front left tire blew out, said Trooper Nick Manale, spokesman for State Police Troop L. The driver, Juan Torres, 37, of Montgomery, Texas, lost control of the rig, and the tractor-trailer rumbled across the median and struck the southbound pickup nearly head-on, police said. After impact, the pickup and 18-wheeler slid off the highway, coming to a halt in the treeline on the west side of the interstate, Manale said.

Troopers specializing in vehicle inspection were brought in to determine whether the 18-wheeler had all of the required equipment and whether that equipment was properly installed, police said. Federal Motor Carrier SafetyRegulations require an 18-wheeler driver to perform a pre-trip inspection and a end of the day report. A driver cannot operate a commercial motor vehicle until he has inspected his equipment including the tires for good working order.

§392.7 Equipment, inspection and use.

No commercial motor vehicle shall be driven unless the driver is satisfied that the following parts and accessories are in good working order, nor shall any driver fail to use or make use of such parts and accessories when and as needed:

Service brakes, including trailer brake connections.
Parking (hand) brake.
Steering mechanism.
Lighting devices and reflectors.
Tires.
Horn.
Windshield wiper or wipers.
Rear-vision mirror or mirrors.
Coupling devices.

[33 FR 19732, Dec. 25, 1968, as amended at 60 FR 38746, July 28, 1995]

Emergency rescuers could not get close because the flames were too hot. The police officer and his cousin who was also killed were in the SUV. Investigators also mistook the SUV for a small car. Also killed were the drivers of the 18-wheelers. The driver of the broken down 18-wheeler on the shoulder was asleep in the cab and not injured. He was cited for failure to properly display warning devices for a disabled vehicle on the shoulder. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations require the 18-wheeler driver to take immediate steps to protect the motoring public. Part 392.22: Emergency signals; stopped commercial motor vehicles.

Reid’s wife was a passenger in her daughter’s van and suffered a broken neck, back and nose requiring surgical intervention. The crash occurred on a heavily traveled section of Interstate 95 in Fairfax County, VA, just South of Washington, D.C. According to a statement by the Virginia State Police, as Sen. Reid’s daughter was driving a 2005 Honda Odyssey, she began breaking for traffic, and the 18-wheeler struck the rear of her van and forced her into the rear of the car in front pushing the vehicle into the next lane, where it struck another vehicle.

P.A.M. is short for the company founder’s initials, but has also been reported to stand for “Pretty Awesome Mileage.” It has a fleet of about 1769 tractors and 4,500 trailers.

The FMCSA is currently holding public sessions regarding the hours of duty and drive time of an 18-wheeler driver on our highways. The result of these 80,000 pound big rig collisions, in the greater percentage of time, the people in the car are going to be seriously injured or killed.

Here the 18-wheeler took out 3 vehicles. The number of 18-wheelers on our highways seems to be increasing. Every time you are on the highway you find yourself next to an 18-wheeler. Safety of the motoring public require limitations on the duty and drive time hours of these big rig drivers to prevent fatigue, falling asleep at the wheel, and traveling to close between the car in front to stop and prevent a rear-end catastrophe.

We wish the Senator’s wife a speedy recovery.

The safety groups have suspended their legal challenge of the hours of service rules which include the number of driving hours and on duty time of a truck driver. The groups, including Public Citizen, Advocates for Auto and Highway Safety and the Teamsters Union, were challenging the rules on several grounds, asserting for example that they permit too much driving time resulting in sleepy and fatigued commercial motor vehicle drivers at risk for wrecks.  Under the agreement, DOT has until next summer to draft a new proposed rule, and until the following summer to publish a final rule.

Their minivan was rear-ended by an 18-wheeler, which according to an eyewitness, was speeding at the time. The minivan was pushed off the highway. The two vehicles got entangled and plowed through trees and ended up in a swamp.

When an 80,000 pound speeding 18-wheeler crushes a passenger vehicle, the truck just has too much size and weight. The Motoring public beware, the trucking transport industry wants to increase 18-wheeler’s size and weight to 97,000 pounds across the country.

Pineville Police report all four lanes of La. 28 were to be reopened around 5:30, but that it may take a while for traffic to resume flowing. An eye witnesses stated that traffic was backed up for miles.

Our question is simple: why did the 18-wheeler accident occur? Had the truck driver been driving too long? Was the truck in the wrong lane of travel at impact?

What other factors exist for this inconvenient and needless wreck? The lesson here is to drive defensively around these behemoth tractor/trailer 18-wheelers.

The plaintiff was a newlywed with a 25-year old wife who was 3-months pregnant. A witness, who happened to be another 18-wheeler driver behind the defendant, testified that the defendant driver never slowed or swerved before crushing the Tollway truck. He also told the jury that the left lanes were free and clear, so the accident was entirely avoidable.

The defendant admitted negligence, but contended that Illinois Tollway was also negligent in the accident for not protecting the plaintiff’s decedent. Illinois Tollway denied any negligence in this case. After a trial that lasted 6 days, the jury found the defendant and their semi-truck driver at fault. The jury found Illinois Tollway not guilty.

The current rule allows 18-wheeler drivers to drive 11 hours within a 14-hour work day, coupled with a 60-hour driving limit in 7 days or a 70-hour limit in 8 days. The driver can restart the 60 or 70 hour clock after having 34 consecutive hours off duty. The previous rule had allowed for 10 hours of driving in a 15-hour period, but allowed drivers to log on and off duty whenever they wanted.

According to the FMCSA statement, the terms of the settlement require the FMCSA to begin a new rulemaking process and submit within nine months, with the current rule to remain in effect during the rulemaking proceedings.

For 60 years, truckers were allowed to drive a maximum of 10 hours at a time. The Bush administration and the trucking industry wanted to let truckers have an extra hour of driving time. The rule also cut rest and recovery time at the end of a work week from 50 or more hours off duty to as little as 34 hours off-duty. A federal appeals court struck the rule down twice, saying the government did not adequately explain its reasoning for adding the extra hour. But the Bush administration reinstated the rule each time. Public Citizen, Parents Against Tired Truckers, Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters sued to get the rule thrown out.

FMCSA officials said that this settlement “resolves potentially lengthy and contentious litigation and gives the FMCSA the opportunity to reconsider its current rule with an eye towards developing a new rule.” Safe driving, driving while not fatigued can save lives. It protects the 18-wheeler driver and the motoring public in the passenger vehicle from unsafe and unhealthy driver conditions.

In a safety recommendation issued by NTSB, it wants FMCSA to “develop and disseminate guidance for commercial drivers, employers and physicians” for identifying high-risk drivers. The NTSB’s recommendation specifically mentioned “commercial drivers,” an referenced an incident of a tractor-trailer driver with diagnosed OSA. He had collided with a Tennessee Highway Patrol vehicle, killing the trooper. The 18-wheeler driver had surgery for OSA but hadn’t reported his condition when examined for his medical certification. Other NTSB investigations mentioned included two commercial airline pilots who fell asleep (one of whom was at risk for OSA) and missed their intended destination airport in Hilo, Hawaii, and a train engineer who had been diagnosed with OSA who went through a stop and struck another train.

The NTSB said the prevalence of OSA is more than 50 percent in patients with an average body mass index of 40.0. It also mentioned a 2006 consensus statement from the Joint Task Force of the American College of Chest Physicians, the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine and the National Sleep Foundation recommending that commercial drivers with a body mass index of 35 or higher and hypertension that can’t be controlled on less than two medications not be certified for longer than three months pending a formal OSA evaluation. Sleepiness from sleep apnea has been shown to significantly increase a driver’s risk of driving drowsy. Driver fatigue and sleepiness is a major cause of truck crashes. Stricter screening mandates could reduce the risk of truck crashes.

“Increasing transparency by allowing greater access to driver safety records will greatly improve the hiring of safe commercial vehicle drivers and help raise the safety bar for professional truck drivers,” said Dave Oslecki, ATA vice president of safety, security and operations. “Providing employers a more in-depth look at a driver’s safety and compliance history will also help ensure that repeated safety violators do not escape the consequences of their actions.”

While we all get distracted by many things that cross our line of vision while driving, there are some things people intentionally do that cause major distractions. Texting while driving is one such distraction. Texting has grown from nearly 10 billion messages a month in 2005 to more than 110 billion in 2008 according to CTAIA-The Wirelesss association, the cellular phone industry’s trade group.

Unfortunately, as texting increases, so do texting related vehicle accidents. We are reading about more and more cases where people are seriously injured or killed as a result of a driver texting while operating a vehicle. These accidents include everything from passenger cars to trains to air disasters caused by texting air traffic controllers.

The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that when drivers of heavy trucks texted, their collision risk was 23 times greater. A separate report by Car and Driver magazine found that texting and driving is more dangerous than drunken driving. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, there are currently 18 states and the District of Columbia that have passed laws making texting while driving illegal. I am proud to say that Louisiana is one of the 18 states that have passed laws making it illegal to text while driving. If we used common sense, we would not have to rely upon our legislatures to make it illegal to text while driving. However, when we look at the statistics, we know that the bottom line is that all states should get on board and make texting while driving illegal.

When the 18-wheeler veered out of its lane, a sports utility vehicle traveling next to it apparently was caused to veer resulting in the 18-wheeler and SUV entering the westbound lanes of traffic causing a collision with 5 other west bound vehicles. The Budweiser trailer jack-knifed and came to a rest in the westbound lanes.

10 people were transported to area hospitals. The interstate was shut down for nearly 3 hours to conduct the investigation and clear the crash site. Our question is simple: why did the 18-wheeler driver veer out of his lane? Fatigue, sleep apnea, mechanical problem, driving too long?

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has reacted to the GAO report by putting in place new oversight measures, computer matching processes, new safety audit regulations and stricter compliance follow up. Paying for the needed computer upgrades will only come from a proposed $500 billion highway safety reorganization bill which has been held up by the Obama administration for a review of costs.

In the current economy and amid the national debate over costs of health care reform and rising deficits, passage of that bill seems unlikely. Unfortunately for us that means any bus or 18 wheeler we meet on the road could be the one being operated by unsafe and unscrupulous motor carrier operators.