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By Attorney Drew C. Timmons
Trial Lawyer, Fried Goldberg, LLC
In cases where the truck driver’s negligence involves the violation of an established law or rule, especially if it is disputed, it can be tempting to narrow your focus on this violation and ignore other potential avenues for liability.
However, your case may have additional value based on the trucking company’s direct negligence in failing to train its driver to prevent the circumstances that led to the violation in the first place.
Trucking Companies Are Required to Train Drivers
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSRs) require motor carriers to provide instruction to their drivers regarding the applicable safety regulations. 49 C.F.R. §§ 383.111; 390.3(e)(2); 390.11; 392.1.
This includes training on hours-of-service rules, pre and post trip inspections, precautions in adverse weather conditions, cell phone usage while driving, speeding, space management, and various others.
If you can establish in discovery that the trucking company failed to adequately train its driver on one or more of these issues, and that such training could have prevented the accident, you can shift your focus away from the defendant driver, and instead target the company as the most culpable party.
Because the jury will no longer be restrained by its natural sympathy for the driver, a negligent training case is much more likely to result in a true verdict for the injured client.
Initial Training
The canned response from many trucking companies with respect to training is that they hire experienced drivers and that they expect them to know and follow the FMCSRs and the rules of the road at the time of hire.
In essence, this means that trucking companies are not doing anything to ensure that their drivers are actually familiar with the applicable regulations or safe driving standards. Actual road skill training is typically limited to a brief road test where the driver’s tendencies cannot truly be evaluated.
The fact that a truck driver has a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) at the time of hire and can pass a road test under ideal time and weather conditions does not mean they are a skilled driver. It also does not necessarily satisfy the company’s duty to train.
Drivers are also usually asked to sign off on their receipt of a driver safety manual or employee manual, but trucking companies rarely do anything to verify their drivers’ review of these manuals. Instead, they merely require the employee to “familiarize” themselves with the policies.
In other words, the company will hold the employee to the standard for discipline purposes without ever ensuring that the driver knows what the standard is.
Fried Goldberg LLC recently handled a case in which the driver was hired for a job involving interstate passenger transport, but she had never been subject to hours-of-service regulations in her previous employment.
Within a month of her employment with the new company, she was involved in a collision that occurred minutes before she would have gone over her hours, but when she was still hundreds of miles from her drop-off location. This case quickly transformed from a fatigued driver case to a negligent training case against the company.
Discipline and Retraining
A trucking company’s failure to recognize and correct a driver’s tendencies during his employment can also be categorized as negligent training. Many trucking and logistics companies have the ability to track their drivers’ routes and speed, but they fail to actually monitor these devices for warning signs.
Where a trucking company ignores repeated notifications from its tracking systems showing repetitive speeding violations by its driver, a case can be made that the company failed both its driver and the general public by condoning this conduct and failing to train on proper safe driving.
Similarly, Fried Goldberg LLC handled a case where the company provided annual road reviews and noted performance issues of the driver, but it failed to provide any retraining to the driver on how to change his habits or improve his driving.
Another example of negligent retraining might be a trucking company’s requirement that a driver complete a particular delivery within an impossible deadline.
In addition to this being a specific violation of the FMCSRs on its own (49 C.F.R. §§ 392.6), it also provides evidence that the company was training its driver that speeding was acceptable and necessary to perform his job.
The Defendant Driver Can Be Your Best Witness Against the Trucking Company
Typically, a defendant driver will testify that he was aware of the applicable regulations and standards, and that either he knows he violated them, or that he believed what he was doing was consistent with those rules.
Either answer can be helpful, but the driver’s testimony that he believed that his negligent act was consistent with his employer’s instructions can be powerful for a negligent training claim against the company.
Deposition questioning should be designed to give the driver an opportunity to demonstrate what the company did or did not do to train him on the applicable safety protocols, and whether meeting the requirements of his job allowed him to comply with those protocols.
Navigating a case involving negligent training requires intimate knowledge of the federal rules and regulations which apply to trucking companies, and an understanding of what documents a trucking company should maintain on their drivers.
Contact Fried Goldberg LLC for Guidance on Negligent Training Claims
Cases involving negligent training demand a detailed understanding of the FMCSRs, internal motor-carrier practices, and the evidence needed to expose systemic failures inside a trucking company. Whether you represent an injured client or are navigating a case of your own, our team is available to consult, strategize, and help you build the strongest version of your claim.
Fried Goldberg LLC has handled negligent training cases across the country and routinely works with attorneys nationwide who want to ensure every angle of liability is fully developed. If you have questions about discovery, document requests, driver testimony, or how to frame negligent training for a jury, we’re here to help.
To discuss a case or explore co-counsel opportunities, give us a call or contact us online today. Every conversation is confidential, and our team is committed to supporting both truck accident victims and the lawyers who stand beside them.
