Attorney Bruce Millar of Millar & Mixon, LLC, in Atlanta cites ease of skirting FMCSA regulations and prevalence of ‘chameleon carriers’ in Georgia as reasons to seek reform.Atlanta truck accident attorney Bruce Millar said a recent report of lax trucking company oversight in Georgia is troubling and should spur legislation to curb abuses in the trucking industry.“While we understood these regulations, or the lack of regulation, because of our work with commercial truck accident victims, it is still alarming to see in this report how easily trucking safety rules are ignored in Georgia,” said Millar, managing partner at the Atlanta personal injury firm of Millar & Mixon, LLC, in Atlanta.
“We hope others are also alarmed and are prompted to address these issues in a manner that helps to ensure safer trucking in our state,” Millar continued.The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently reported that commercial trucks that travel beyond the Georgia border can be on the road for as long as 18 months between inspections, according to the Associated Press.The news report also said that Georgia trucking companies that are shut down by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) because of safety violations can quickly reopen under new names, with few if any changes.The report cites a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) study about so-called “chameleon carriers” that says “groups of officials from … Georgia … stated that chameleon carriers are either a serious or a growing problem that they encounter regularly.”
“It’s time to bring the Georgia trucking industry into the 21st century,” Millar said.Millar said his firm’s investigations of wrecks involving trucks and other commercial motor vehicles (CMVs) have found a variety of complications in determining responsibility in 18-wheeler accidents.“Sometimes just tracing ownership of a trucking company or the truck driver’s relationship to the company requires a lot of digging through a variety of documents,” Millar said. “Sometimes, the documents conflict, and sometimes, appropriate records don’t exist.
