Ep. 46 - Hidden Trucking Industry Problems

Chris Card:
You have to have insurance or you can’t be operating a semi. So, if you raise the cost of the insurance as well to where it’s a lot more difficult to get insurance, you’re going to get more quality people too because then they’re really worried about being cautious drivers.

David Craig – Host:
I’m Attorney Dave Craig, managing partner and one of the founders of the law firm of Craig, Kelley & Faultless. I’ve represented people who have been seriously injured or who have had a family member killed in semi or other big truck wreck for over 30 years. Following the wreck, their lives are chaos. Often they don’t even know enough about the process to ask the right questions. It is my goal to empower you by providing you with the information you need to protect yourself and your family, and each and every episode I will interview top experts and professionals that are involved in truck wreck cases. This is After the Crash.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of After the Crash. Today, we’re having Chris Card as our guest. Unfortunately, Chris’ family had to experience what it’s like to go through a semi-truck wreck, and there’s a couple of subject matters that came up in his case and his family’s case that they feel very strongly about and I feel very strongly about, and we’re going to talk about those two things today and those are the insurance limits that truck drivers have to have as well as chameleon carriers, what that is and how that affects it. But first of all, Chris, welcome to the podcast.

Chris Card:
Good morning.

David Craig – Host:
Now, Chris, I know that you had the unfortunate experience that your father was involved in a wreck with a semi down in Decatur Township, Marion County, back in April of 2021. If I remember right, the wreck happened on Camby Road and State Road 67 North. Your dad was stopped at a red light, was getting ready to pull out, and a semi-tractor trailer was coming up, going north on 67, had a red light. Despite that, he went into the intersection, wasn’t speeding, but still was going too fast to stop or slow down and your dad had no chance, hit your dad.

I think probably unfortunate thing was that the semi driver didn’t accept responsibility and so you had to hire lawyers. Tell me a little bit about just that process. I mean, most people who are listening to this are just everyday people like what you guys were before this happened. So, what is the family thinking about? Your dad survived the wreck, lived for about 12 days with a severe brain injury, but what was the family going through? How did decide why you needed a lawyer? How did you decide to get a lawyer? How did you get a lawyer?

Chris Card:
Well, at first it’s not the first thing on your mind. First thing was to get to the hospital, check on him. Once we knew the situation and how bad it was, my wife happened to say, “Do we need to contact somebody?” We made a phone call to an attorney, an attorney gave your office’s phone number, contacted you guys and went from there, but when you’re going through all that, that’s not really on the top of your list. It’s making sure your loved one’s okay. It is just kind of a whirlwind. It’s just for the information to be saved that the important information from the semi is to be saved and stuff like that and thank goodness we did. That’s how it went down is we just made one phone call. One phone call led to calling you guys, and then you guys stepped in and helped us with everything else we needed to know, and the rest happened. 12 days later, he passed away from his injuries and just now finishing the case now.

David Craig – Host:
Yeah, well I think that I’ve had clients tell me it’s like chaos. I mean your world’s turned upside down and I’ve never had a client, and I think this is a misconception out there and for people who’ve never been through this, people aren’t looking just to hire lawyers. When they’ve been through this that’s like you said, the last thing on their mind. They’re worried about their loved one and they’re worried about the spouses, their moms, their dads, their kids. I mean, there’s so much going on: their business, their bills. I mean, there’s just so much going on that the last thing that people typically think about is, “Oh yes, maybe I should get a lawyer to preserve evidence.” In this case, luckily you called a lawyer that your family trusted, and they called us because they knew we do semi-truck wrecks.

So, we were able to preserve the evidence when this case was important because this truck driver denied that he ran a red light. He said at first that it was your dad’s fault for pulling out, and so, we went in and we did a download, an ECM download on the truck, the semi-tractor to show that it wasn’t slowing. He didn’t slow at all. He didn’t brake until right at the last second, right as he’s going into the intersection. We also showed that your dad did stop, had stopped and he had started to proceed into the intersection and we were able to preserve, look at some skid marks. There were a few little bit of skid marks there are at the scene. Also, get 9-1-1 calls and find witnesses and talk to people who saw the wreck.

It’s frustrating because a lot of times people think in a case, especially where a semi runs a red light, the family, they think, “Well, they’re going to admit it’s fault. I mean that part of it’s just clear, that part’s easy. Let’s just worry about getting better.” So, they’re not doing anything to preserve evidence while the trucking company is doing everything in their power and their capacity to evade and avoid responsibility. So, I’m glad that your family did reach out because I see so many cases where family members just either assume the police will do a good job or that they don’t have to worry about it because the trucking company will admit it’s their fault and do what they should do, and then they try to hire us late and the evidence is gone. So, I’m glad your family didn’t do that.

Chris Card:
As well as we are. I think you nailed it. It’s completely the last thing on your mind. My dad had a business, we were worrying about who was going to run the business, make sure everything got done. So, it was just the last thing on our mind was to contact an attorney and think about that. Thank goodness that we had my wife had enough sense, “Hey, we need to do this,” because if not, who knows where we would be.

David Craig – Host:
Yeah. Well, and tell me a little bit about your dad, because your dad, he was I think 69 years old but still was out busy. He still had customers. He still was busy. He enjoyed working from what you’ve told me. He enjoyed getting out. Tell me a little bit about your dad.

Chris Card:
My dad was, he was kind of the life of the party. He’d go out and he was a social butterfly. He owned a landscaping business and he would get his work done. Then, he would go in the office and sit and talk with the people that he was working for and just a good man. He’s the first guy to give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. It’s kind of a funny thing, not funny at all, but in what I mean is he was a diesel mechanic and then he was a foreman, and so he worked on semis his entire life and then for that to be his demise, it is just really weird how all that went down. But dad, he was a good man. He very active for 69 years old, which I know that’s not old, but he would run circles around me and always had a smile on his face. So, the world lost a good one. He’s a good man, still a good man. But yeah, he was a good person and did a lot of good things in this world and social butterfly.

David Craig – Host:
I know that was tough, that first those 12 days, because it was the doctors, the brain injury was a very severe brain injury and some people make it through that, but a lot of people don’t, and obviously your dad was one that didn’t and it had to be hard on your family and your mom to get through that period of time. I think that’s one of the things that I want to talk about because the medical costs of that, I mean, they had to do extensive work with him. He was in a coma and his medical expenses were over half a million dollars. So, the cost of medicine has risen significantly. People think, “Well, insurance is going up and certainly companies can pay for that,” but the cost of medicine, the cost of hospital care has increased dramatically like everything else has seems like with inflation.

The one thing that has never changed since 1980 is the amount of insurance that a truck driver has to carry or a motor carrier has to carry. That was set in 1980 at $750,000. That is still the amount today. That’s the minimum required. I know your family feels strongly that that’s just not right because in a case like this, I mean your dad had a really nice pickup truck. I think it was worth more than $50,000. He had medical bills over a half a million dollars. His vehicle was totaled, his medical bills were over a half a million dollars. There was another car that was damaged in a wreck. There were two other people that had minor mild injuries and all that had to be paid for out of the limits.
Now in this case, he had a million with some drivers carry a million, so they don’t carry the minimum of $750,000, but certainly $750,000 was not adequate and even a $1 million wasn’t adequate, and especially since your dad was a breadwinner, still making income, still taking care of family. Then, not to mention the loss of love and affection and guidance. So, tell me a little bit about how your family, what your family thinks about this limit of $750,000.

Chris Card:
I think the key to the whole thing is you say in 1980, everything else in this world has went up. For an example, they have a lawn care business and we’ve just done away with it this year, but with that lawn care business, we had to have a $2 million policy. That kind of puts it in perspective to us. When you have a $2 million policy on a landscaping business and minimum is $750,000 when you’re behind the wheel of a semi, which is going to do a lot more damage than a lawn mower, provided you don’t get cut up by the blades.

We’re very adamant about the minimum should be going up. Just the state of it being his medical bills being over half a million dollars, his vehicle, the other vehicles, him being the breadwinner in the family. The other people that were left behind, it shouldn’t be a burden to them to have to figure out how they’re going to make ends meet at the end of the day. That’s kind of where a lot of families find themselves, and we don’t feel that that’s right. We feel that it should be a lot more than that. Money wasn’t an issue. That’s not our driving force. Our driving force is take care of the people that are injured in this. Don’t make the other people have to lose a house, to lose their vehicles, to lose whatever they have. It should go up. I don’t have a number in my head, but if I have $2 million on lawn mowers, then maybe that’s what it should be.

But our issue with it is the people left behind should not have to worry about being homeless, not knowing how they’re going to pay their bills. They didn’t do anything wrong in this scenario. He had nothing to do with anything, but my mom had to worry about all that. So, that’s why we’re very adamant about it. We want to see it change for the future, for other people, and anything that we can do to help that we’re 100% behind it.

David Craig – Host:
The Institute of Safer Trucking, they have a website and they put out information and they’re very much advocates for changing the insurance policy limits, and they cite and they quote and then said that even if the limits were raised for the same inflation, that medical expenses have gone up. So, if it just kept up with medical expenses inflation, the limit would be in 2024,dollars would be over $5 million would be the minimum. So, even if just the trucking limits had kept up with the medical limits because that’s what people have to pay. A lot of people are going into the hospital and have catastrophic injuries and some folks will survive with catastrophic injuries and they’re going to have medical expenses for the rest of their lives. So, even if it just kept up with that inflation, a medical cost inflation, then today’s limit would be over $5 million instead of $750,000.

So, that’s what we would like to see. We like to fight that as well. I’ve seen too many families just like yours where there’s inadequate insurance where people, and your mom was really worried about just the medical expenses when I first met her. Then at that time, there was talk about him surviving and what that would be like. So, there was going to be significant expenses for your family. So, I think that is something that hopefully can be changed and people like you and can help that by telling their story, and I hope that that happens.

Another thing in this case, which was frustrating, so one of the things that we did when we did out, we did an inspection of the defendant’s truck. When I do an inspection, I have an accident reconstructionist. I have also a heavy truck mechanic. So I have two experts with me when I go out and inspect the truck. I was personally there when we inspected the truck that killed your dad. One of the frustrating things was it was, if I remember right, it was a freightliner. There was a problem with the brakes on that. The truck that hit your dad was a single truck, a trucking company that had one truck and one driver and it was out of California. So, it was just a one-off, one company, one truck, and it was hauling all over the country.

So, this driver was headquartered out of California. Then, after this wreck happened in less than a year, he changed the name of his company and changed his corporate address. Now, and we see that. It’s called a chameleon carrier. What happens is that carriers that have bad safety, have bad accidents or have financial issues often will try to change their name and change their location, sometimes change their DOT number in order to try to act like they’re somebody new. So, that way they can run under the radar of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s enforcement, and they can get insurance. The minimum insurance, again being $750,000, maybe they buy a million because some carriers, some shippers require a $1 million coverage. So, you have some really bad semi-truck companies that are running equipment that is not as good or safe or they’ll have drivers not as good, and they are pretending to be somebody else after a bad wreck. I know your family feels strongly about that as well.

Chris Card:
Correct. We feel that after the accident occurred, we feel that there should be something in place where they can’t shut down that company and start another company while the litigation is going on because we feel like he got to go on and live his life, everyday life work, no repercussions for what was done. I worked in the industry. I feel like that DOT number that you’re assigned, there should be something on that number that shows that there’s an outstanding accident that’s going on where insurance companies don’t just allow them to switch like that. If it was harder to get coverage for people like that in that situation where maybe you have to pay a little bit more and it’s better coverage and maybe we would have better drivers out there. There’s a lot of great drivers out there. Unfortunately in this situation, this driver wasn’t, and he started switching information, switching insurance, switching some of his personal finances and everything over.

We really feel that if he would’ve been ticketed at the site and points would’ve went on his CDL, then possibly maybe he wouldn’t have been able to switch that over and do that, or there would’ve been a lot more repercussions as far as finances and the financial part of it. So, there’s a lot to it where people think that, “Okay, well there was an accident, he got points on the CDL and his insurance is going to go up.” Well, in this situation, that’s not what happened. He was able to switch the name, switch all that information over and kept going. We have to find a way to make sure that that’s not going on for other people. We have to, whether, like I said, it follows with his DOT number, however that works and not make it so easy for these guys to be able to do that so that we do get the professional truck drivers on the road that are great drivers and do away with some of the bad drivers.
We’re very animated about that. We think it was definitely wrong and think that that’s something that lawmakers can make. It’s a pretty easy solution if people will stand behind it in support. So, that one there is really, really hits home when you talk about that one.

David Craig – Host:
I mean, obviously if the worst drivers are out there running bad equipment and they can get away with it, they’re going to keep doing it. So, they’re running on their smaller profit margins, they’re going through brokers bidding low on jobs and they’re out there running bad equipment just trying to get by and trying to skate underneath the safety regulations. Then, when they get in a bad wreck, they swap, they change names, they change DOT numbers and they get new insurance. I see it way too often and they are the worst drivers. I mean, you made a great point. I mean the majority of truck drivers are really good people. I mean, our country couldn’t be open, our supplies wouldn’t show up, our food, I mean you name it is delivered by truckers. So, truck drivers is an extraordinarily important job.

Motor carriers are important. Trucking companies are extraordinarily important, and the majority of them are really good people who just want to get home to their own families, but the bad ones make it bad for everybody. The bad ones are out there running on bad equipment or they’re bad drivers and they’re badly, poorly trained and they’re out there endangering all of us. If we can crack down on that, this is frustrating. I mean, this guy opens up a new business, new name within less than a year and a new address and new state. So, because in his driver’s license he didn’t get ticketed. So there’s nothing on his CDL, which is not unusual because a lot of times the police, they don’t have the resources, they don’t have reconstructionists, they don’t have mechanics on staff and a lot of police departments to go out and investigate an accident.

So, they don’t really know what happens. They just want to clear the road and get the road cleared and road open, and so, they don’t always do a full investigation even when there’s a fatality, which you would hope that they would do it right, but they don’t always. So, the family hopefully hires an attorney and then they go out and preserve the evidence and look at it. It is frustrating and we see it all too often. The other great points you make is that if you up the insurance, I mean insurance really is a small percentage of the operating expense of a trucking company or a truck driver compared to all the other expenses of equipment and all that. So, you bump that up and you make somebody who will carry $5 million worth of insurance. Now the insurance companies are paying more attention because they have a higher risk, and so, hopefully they scrutinize their drivers more because they don’t want to lose $5 million.

Hopefully, the cost becomes a little bit more prohibitive for the really bad drivers and you force the bad drivers out of the equation. So, by enforcing the insurance and raising the insurance limits by doing away and being more careful that we don’t allow bad drivers just to reopen, I think that would provide increased safety for all of us on the highways.

Chris Card:
I definitely agree. If you raise the cost of the insurance as well to where it’s a lot more difficult to get insurance, you’re going to get more quality people too, because then they’re really worried about being cautious drivers, just the same as with anybody driving an everyday vehicle. If you’re in 10 wrecks, eventually you can’t afford insurance. With the difference being in a semi you have to have insurance or you can’t be operating a semi. So I really believe that if we would crack down on that, then the few bad apples that we have we would get rid of and we would have professional truck drivers again. I know when growing up, that’s how it used to be. You saw a gentleman behind the wheel of a semi that was a professional driver, and I think we need to get back to that. I understand that they’re in demand, but there are ways to get good people behind the wheel of vehicles, but it’s frustrating that the inflation that everything else has occurred hasn’t taken place with that and it’s still at $750,000.

To me, I really do, it’s dear and near to my heart with having to have $2 million in the insurance on a landscaping business, but yet $750,000 on driving a semi. So, I think that that is something that definitely needs, with lawmakers need to get in there, change that and be proactive. I know there’s a lot of things that we need to worry about, but that’s one of them. Families shouldn’t have to go through what we went through. Accidents happen every day, and I understand accidents happen, but when you have an accident, most of the time you have remorse. We didn’t see in everything that we read that this gentleman had any remorse, which just kind of tells you what kind of person, quality of person this person was.

I don’t know how I would live with myself if I had an accident and killed somebody, but it didn’t seem like that was a big worry to him. So it’s a process, and I think it would be a process of having better people behind the wheel of a semi. I think it just goes hand in hand. So, I know that my beliefs are different than a lot of people’s beliefs, but I think everybody believes in the same on this. Anybody that’s been in the situation that we’ve been in believes the same as us, everything should be inflated a little more.

David Craig – Host:
Yeah. Well, and again, people don’t think about it because they haven’t been through it.

Chris Card:
Correct.

David Craig – Host:
That’s a challenge. I mean, we had another case down in North Vernon, Indiana, Jennings County, where a truck driver, I mean he had horrible safety ratings. In his truck, he had bad equipment. His equipment was constantly being taken out of service. He had bad drivers. Those drivers were being taken out of service so he couldn’t get insurance. What was frustrating was, so he goes to the insurance company and the insurance company said, “Well, here’s what you need to do. You need to change your name.” So, they helped him become a chameleon carrier. The insurance company actually was just selling $750,000 worth of insurance. That’s all this guy would get. They changed the name. He had the same driver, same crappy equipment, same dangerous equipment.

He then hires a new driver to run a particular load. He goes in and he bids on it to a broker. He gets the load because he bids so low that he under bids reputable companies. He then sends a driver out to pick up that load. That driver’s coming back, and the driver pulls off the side of the road and calls dispatch. Dispatch puts the owner of the company on. The driver says, “I can’t drive this thing. The brakes aren’t working. Brakes are not working on this truck. I cannot drive it.” The owner tells the driver, “If you don’t drive it, I’m firing you.” The driver says, “Well, you’re going to have to fire me. I’m not driving this truck because this brakes don’t work and I’m going to be in an accident. The brakes are not working right.” The owner says, “Well, you keep it right where you’re at.” He goes, and fires this driver.

The owner personally gets up on this bad piece of equipment, continues driving and the brakes don’t work and he kills two of my clients. Now that man, that company, should have never ever been on the roadway, but they were a chameleon carrier. So they were able to, and they were helped by the insurance company to help to get this by changing their DOT, by changing their name. I mean, we went out with investigators immediately and showed, I mean, the barn still had the old name on it, but that’s a chameleon carrier. They only had $750,000. They killed two people, wasn’t enough money. So folks, unless you’ve been through this, you don’t know that this is happening, but Mr. Card, and these other folks and other clients of mine are going through it.

So hopefully, with you and your family and other families speaking out, it’s my hope that we can change it and by changing it, we don’t do away with truckers, we just do away with the bad truckers. Well, Chris, thank you so much for your time and prayers to you and your family, and thanks for being a guest on After the Crash, the podcast.

Chris Card:
Thank you, and have a great day.

David Craig – Host:
This is David Craig, and you’ve been listening to After the Crash. If you’d like more information about me or my law firm, please go to our website ckflaw.com or if you’d like to talk to me, you can call 1-800-Ask-David. If you would like a guide on what to do after a truck wreck then pick up my book, Semitruck Wreck: A Guide for Victims and Their Families, which is available on Amazon, or you can download it for free on our website, www.ckflaw.com.