Why Truck Crash Cases Are Different: Federal Motor Carrier Rules, Logs, and Preservation Letters

Published April 12, 2012 · Injury Law Basics

Interstate 75 and Interstate 70 cross in Dayton, which makes our area one of the busiest trucking corridors in the Midwest. When an 80,000-pound tractor-trailer collides with a 3,000-pound car, the injuries are rarely minor and the case that follows is nothing like an ordinary fender-bender claim. Trucking companies operate under a detailed set of federal safety rules, they generate records that can prove exactly what went wrong, and they have those records on a destruction schedule. The single most important thing an injured person can do after a truck crash is make sure that evidence is preserved before it disappears.

The federal rules that govern every commercial carrier

Interstate motor carriers and their drivers must comply with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, found in Title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations. Those rules cover far more than how to drive. A few of the ones that matter most in an injury case:

Hours of service (49 C.F.R. 395.3). A property-carrying driver may not drive without first taking 10 consecutive hours off duty, may not drive after 14 hours on duty, and may drive no more than 11 hours within that 14-hour window. Drivers are also limited to 60 hours on duty in 7 days or 70 hours in 8 days, depending on the carrier's schedule. Fatigue is a leading cause of serious truck crashes, and these limits exist because of it.

Driver logs (49 C.F.R. 395.8). Every driver must keep a record of duty status, the paper "log book," showing every change between off duty, sleeper berth, driving, and on duty not driving, with the location of each change. The driver signs it as true. Falsifying a log is a violation. The carrier must retain those logs, along with the supporting documents that can verify them, for at least six months.

Vehicle inspection and maintenance (49 C.F.R. 396.3). Carriers must systematically inspect, repair, and maintain every vehicle they control, and keep records of what was done and when. Those records are retained for one year. Brake failures, tire blowouts, and lighting defects almost always leave a paper trail here.

Driver qualification (49 C.F.R. 391.51). The carrier must keep a qualification file on each driver: the employment application, driving record, road test, annual record review, and medical examiner's certificate. A carrier that put an unqualified or medically unfit driver behind the wheel is responsible for that choice.

Accident records (49 C.F.R. 390.15). Carriers must keep an accident register for three years and must make all records and information about a crash available to investigators.

Carriers are also subject to drug and alcohol testing requirements, and drivers must hold a commercial driver's license. A violation of any of these rules is powerful evidence that the carrier and driver fell below the standard of care.

The evidence a truck case runs on

A car-crash claim usually turns on the police report, the witnesses, and the damage. A truck case has all of that plus a second layer of proof that only exists because the federal rules require it:

• The driver's logs for the days before the crash, and the fuel receipts, toll records, weigh-station records, and dispatch communications that can show whether the logs were honest.
• Bills of lading and delivery schedules, which show how much time the driver was given to make the run.
• The tractor's onboard electronic data, including engine control module records of speed, braking, and throttle in the seconds before impact.
• Maintenance and inspection records for the tractor and trailer, and the post-crash inspection.
• The driver's qualification file, drug and alcohol test results, and prior violation history.
• The carrier's own accident investigation, including photographs and statements taken at the scene.

That last item deserves emphasis. Large carriers and their insurers send investigators and sometimes lawyers to serious crash scenes within hours. They photograph the vehicles, interview witnesses, and begin building their defense while the injured person is still in the emergency room. If you were hurt, the carrier's investigation of your crash is already underway.

Why the preservation letter cannot wait

Here is the problem. Six months for logs. One year for maintenance records. Onboard electronic data that can be overwritten when the truck is put back in service or repaired. Dispatch and communications records that are routinely purged. Nothing in the federal rules requires a carrier to keep evidence beyond the retention period just because it was involved in a crash.

The solution is a preservation letter, also called a spoliation letter. It is a formal written demand, sent to the carrier, the driver, and the insurer, identifying every category of evidence that must be preserved and warning that destroying it after notice will have consequences in court. Once a carrier has received that letter, it cannot claim it innocently discarded the logs on the normal schedule.

In our office, the preservation letter goes out immediately after the first meeting, before the demand, before the lawsuit, before anything else. The letter typically demands preservation of the tractor and trailer themselves, the electronic data, the driver's logs and supporting documents for the preceding months, the qualification file, the maintenance file, the dispatch and communication records, the drug and alcohol test results, and the carrier's own accident investigation.

More than one defendant, more than one policy

Truck cases also differ in who pays. The driver may be an employee or an independent owner-operator. The tractor may be owned by one company and the trailer by another. The load may have been arranged by a broker and loaded by a shipper, as in the propane-cylinder case I wrote about in February, where the company that built the load, not the trucking company, was held responsible for a driver's death. You can read that post on the $3 million verdict affirmed by the Fifth District.

Each of those parties may carry its own insurance, and commercial policies are often far larger than the limits on a personal auto policy. Identifying every responsible party and every policy early is part of what makes these cases worth pursuing properly. In multi-vehicle pile-ups, the analysis of who started the chain also matters, as the Second District explained in a case I covered last fall on chain-reaction crashes and comparative fault.

What this means for you

If you or a family member has been hurt in a collision with a semi, a dump truck, a delivery truck, or any other commercial vehicle:

• Do not give a recorded statement to the carrier's insurer. Their adjuster will call quickly and sound helpful. As I explained in my post on recorded statements, nothing you say will be used to help you.
• Get the truck's information. The carrier's name and USDOT number are on the door of the tractor. The police report should have them, but photograph the truck if you can.
• Call a lawyer within days, not months. The six-month log retention window is the outside limit; onboard data and dispatch records can be gone much sooner.
• Expect the carrier to blame you. Comparative fault is the standard defense in a truck case. The federal records are often the best way to answer it.
• Understand the stakes. Serious truck crashes produce catastrophic injuries and substantial insurance coverage. These cases are worth handling right from the start.

Our office handles truck accident cases throughout the Dayton area and along the I-75 and I-70 corridors. You can learn more about how we approach car and truck collisions on our practice pages.