Study finds sick truckers causing fatal wrecks

updated 8:41 p.m. ET July 21, 2008

WASHINGTON - Tractor-trailer and bus drivers in the United States have suffered seizures, heart attacks or unconscious spells behind the wheel that led to deadly crashes on highways. Hundreds of thousands of drivers carry commercial licenses even though they also qualify for full federal disability payments, according to a new U.S. safety study obtained by The Associated Press.

The problems threatening highway travelers persist despite years of government warnings and hundreds of deaths and injuries blamed on drivers who blacked out, collapsed or suffered major health problems behind the wheels of vehicles that can weigh 40 tons or more.

The U.S. agency responsible for cracking down on unfit truckers, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, acknowledges it hasn't completed any of eight recommendations that U.S. safety regulators have proposed since 2001.

One would set minimum standards for determining whether truckers are medically safe to drive. Another would prevent truckers from "doctor shopping" to find a physician who might overlook a risky health condition.

Major public safety problem
"We have a major public safety problem, and we haven't corrected it," said Gerald Donaldson, senior research director at the Washington-based Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, whose members include consumer, health and safety groups and insurance companies. "You have an agency that is favorably disposed to maintaining the integrity of the industry's economic situation."

Truckers violating federal medical rules have been caught in every state, according to a review by the AP of 7.3 million commercial driver violations compiled by the Transportation Department in 2006, the latest data available.

Texas, Maryland, Georgia, Florida, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan, Alabama, New Jersey, Minnesota and Ohio were states where drivers were sanctioned most frequently for breaking medical rules, such as failing to carry a valid medical certificate. Those 12 states accounted for half of all such violations in the United States.

Consider these cases:

• A Florida bus driver who suffers from lung disease and uses three daily inhalers to control breathing told congressional investigators that he "occasionally blacks out and forgets things." He works as a substitute driver despite not having a medical certificate, and his commercial license expires in 2010. The man has collected Social Security benefits since 1994. He confided to investigators that he "gets winded" walking to his mailbox but has no problem driving a passenger bus.
• A Virginia trucker with a prosthetic leg from a farm accident more than 10 years ago is permitted to drive tanker trucks until at least 2012, even though he doesn't have the proper federal paperwork required for amputees. Virginia revoked the medical license for the official who approved him to drive over charges the official was caught illegally distributing controlled substances.
• George Albright Jr., 61, smashed his 70,000-pound tractor-trailer into congested traffic on Interstate 70 in June 2006, killing four women in a Ford sedan near Columbia, Missouri. Albright's employer agreed earlier this year to pay $18 million in a settlement. A Missouri jury acquitted Albright this month on four counts of second-degree involuntary manslaughter, after his lawyers argued in court that a diabetic episode "put him in an altered state of consciousness." Albright wasn't injured.
• A gasoline tanker plunged from an overpass and exploded in flames on Interstate 95 near Baltimore in January 2004, killing four people. Witnesses reported the driver slumped over the wheel. Maryland investigators concluded the driver, Jackie M. Frost, had suffered a heart attack or other medical emergency, but his family disputed that.
• A 55-passenger bus rolled off Interstate 610 in New Orleans in May 1999, killing 22 passengers. The NTSB said the bus driver, Frank Bedell, 46, suffered life-threatening kidney and heart conditions but held a valid license and medical certificate. Moments before the crash, a passenger recounted seeing the driver slumped in his seat.

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