Steven M. Gursten Trucking Accidents Law Blog on Lawyers.com

Yet another wrongful and completely senseless death has occurred at the hands of an extremely negligent truck driver. This trucker was watching streaming video on a laptop over a period of several hours and while “distracted,” he crashed his tractor-trailer into the vehicle of a young mother – killing  her.

This is one of those stories that’s very hard for some of us truck accident attorneys to grapple with. It shocks and amazes that someone could be so incredibly careless while driving an 80,000 pound truck. But the sad reality is that for the few attorneys in Michigan that specialize in truck accident cases, we are seeing  more and more wrongful death and serious personal injury lawsuits like this one.

The reason is simple - trucking companies and truck drivers, especially in Michigan, keep ignoring the mandatory safety rules that are meant to protect us all.

The trucker, who was working for Millis Transfer, also was driving with no more than four hours of sleep over a 27-hour period, another serious safety violation. He never should have been on the road in the first place.

State police determined by GPS tracking of the tractor-trailer, that the trucker had been sleep-deprived at the time of the crash. That violated federal hours of service regulations that limit the time commercial drivers can be behind the wheel. State police also found he kept fictitious log books (many truckers who regularly keep fraudulent books call these log books “lie books”) to mask his over-hours driving.

Unfortunately, this not one bit surprising. I’ve written extensively about the ways truck drivers can falsify records like log books and truck inspections in order to get more time on the road – often a requirement from truck company management to deliver loads quicker to make more profits. But as we can see here, cutting such drastic corners takes innocent lives.

The trucker who killed the woman was convicted of second-degree manslaughter and will be sentenced Sept. 1, facing a five- to 15-year prison term. But what about holding the trucking company accountable for her senseless death?

This recent disaster got me thinking, “Such horrible truck accidents involving such egregious truck drivers seem to happen so much more in Michigan than in other states. Why?”

The answer is that Michigan does not have  punitive damages like many other states. Punitive damages are additional monies awarded when a trucking company or trucker acts with recklessness, malice or gross negligence. Essentially, punitives are needed when the willful disregard or the consequences are so serious that the dangerous conduct shocks the consciousness of a community. They are a way of penalizing the wrongdoer and making an example, so that other companies will not act that way in the future.

Michigan lawyers cannot legally recover punitive damages against trucking companies that knowingly hire unqualified, careless truck drivers who commit safety violations and cause many truck accidents. This absence of punitives allows bad trucking companies to continue to break the law and put profits over people, and to avoid being punished for egregious behavior that has resulted in serious injury or deaths.

And without punitive damages, trucking companies in Michigan have no deterrent from hiring clearly unfit drivers who dodge federal safety laws by moving from state to state, killing people or causing too many truck crashes. I commonly see truck drivers who have caused a long list of accidents come to Michigan, because a truck company that hires this driver will only have to pay the insurance policy limits if he causes an accident. These are drivers who are so dangerous or so unfit that they cannot get jobs in other states with punitive damages. So they come here, to Michigan.

Being a truck accident attorney and past president for the American Association for Justice national truck litigation group, I’ve handled many horrible truck accident cases that clearly call for punitive damages.  I strongly believe that in states that award punitive damages, it’s far more likely dangerous drivers never get hired in the first place, and trucking companies are far more likely to enforce safety rules. To put it simply, if Michigan had punitive damages, many, many of these tragic truck accidents would be stopped.

Check out my Michigan Auto Lawyers Blog for more examples of how truck accident laws affect Michigan drivers as well as safety tips. 

Steven M. Gursten is a partner of Michigan Auto Law. He is past president of the American Association for Justice Truck Litigation Group, and has received the top reported trial verdict in Michigan for truck accidents. Steve was named a Michigan Lawyers Weekly Leader in the Law for his efforts in promoting truck safety in Michigan and throughout the country.