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LinkedinDavid Craig: If you want to make the roads safer, in my opinion, treat the truck drivers right. Pay them properly. Increase what we’re paying truck drivers because I would rather the roads be safe and pay a little bit more for my products and have less people get killed on the highways.
I’m David Craig, a board-certified truck accident attorney who’s dedicated over 40 years to helping the victims of devastating semi-truck, large truck, and other commercial motor vehicle wrecks. When the stakes are high, you need the information to make the right decision. After tragedy strikes, many people don’t know where to begin or what questions to ask. It is my goal to empower you with the knowledge and resources you need to help you understand your rights and to protect you and your family. On the Ask David episodes, we flip the script. Instead of me asking the questions, I answer them. This is After the Crash.
Ashley Napier: Hello everybody, and welcome to After the Crash podcast, Ask David edition. I am your co-host, Ashley Napier, litigation supervisor here, and I have a very special guest. Wouldn’t you know it? David Craig. Welcome.
David Craig: I think you’re actually the host, but that’s okay.
Ashley Napier: Okay, I’m going to-
David Craig: You’re the host-
Ashley Napier: … write that down, everyone.
David Craig: … of the Ask David series. You’re the host. So it’s another week. It’s another-
Ashley Napier: Another week.
David Craig: … month.
Ashley Napier: Another month. After the Crash. So I have something that we just got back from. Still feeling a little two-hour time difference, jet lag, but-
David Craig: Ladies and gentlemen-
Ashley Napier: … I want to talk about Denver.
David Craig: … we may not be on top of our game today-
Ashley Napier: No.
David Craig: … because we did spend a week in Denver and we’re a little wore out.
Ashley Napier: Yeah, a little tired. It’s nothing like spending 12 days consecutive with your coworkers to really… But I do want to talk about Denver because I absolutely loved it. I thought this was one of the most informative ATAA seminars that we’ve been to. And we had a very special speaker on the first day.
David Craig: So ATAA, for you folks that are listening to this, it’s the largest national personal injury plaintiff lawyer trucking group in the country.
Ashley Napier: Yes.
David Craig: And there’s not a group anywhere close to that. So if you happen to be a personal injury lawyer and you do trucking law, then ATAA is the premier group that you would want to belong to, because they do exclusively trucking. So there’s a lot of other groups, great groups, AAJ, National Trial Lawyers, and they do all kinds of stuff. And some of them have a committee or a section that does trucking, but ATAA is nothing but trucking. And so I’m really proud that I’m one of the original board members of that group. I’m on the Board of Regents with my partner, Scott Faultless, who’s also on the board of regents. And Scott is actually the head of the safety committee for that group.
Ashley Napier: For this year, yes.
David Craig: And so there was a board meeting on Wednesday, this past Wednesday, and so Scott and I were down for the board meeting. And then the conference started on Thursday and ran Friday and Saturday. We were all done and then I came back on Sunday and you all came back on Sunday. But it was all on trucking or trucking related things. Our group now is in the thousands. It’s over 2000 people. Our attorneys belong to it. And there were like, I think around 250 people at this seminar. And so it was a great turnout. Lori Tepper, who is the key person in the group who makes sure that these conferences get-
Ashley Napier: She’s outstanding.
David Craig: She does a wonderful job, and she once again did a fantastic job, and this conference was… I thought they hit it out the park. And I think the cool thing is that I don’t care who you are, there’s stuff you can learn.
Ashley Napier: Right. Yeah, absolutely. We had our paralegal breakout session on Friday, so it’s just kind of where the… It gives the paralegals an opportunity to discuss amongst themselves how can we better support our attorneys? And we had, they said, almost a hundred paralegals there, which was probably terrifying to some attorneys to have a hundred paralegals in a room together and bouncing ideas off of each other. But it was fantastic. I learn something new every single year.
David Craig: Yeah. And that’s the cool thing about… And that’s something that’s unique about our firm, I think, because I looked around and saw how many law firms bring as many people as we brought? And so there are a couple firms who do, one out of Texas and one out of Ohio. But the reality is nobody from Indiana brings their staff like we do.
Ashley Napier: Correct.
David Craig: And you think about it, when you’re running a truck wreck case, you can have one of the greatest lawyers ever and a crappy staff. And so what does that equal? They say they balance it out. Sometimes you got it so you end up with a mediocre result. And I like to look at it and say, okay, no, we want to have a great attorney, but we also want to have a great staff.
Ashley Napier: Correct.
David Craig: And that equals a great result. And so I’m really proud of the fact that we had… Oh gosh, how many people did we end up having?
Ashley Napier: 12.
David Craig: 12 people total that went from Indiana, who left their families, left their kids like you did, who got sick.
Ashley Napier: Came back to a sick kid.
David Craig: Sick kid.
Ashley Napier: Oh gosh.
David Craig: And so they left your kids, you left your family, left your dogs, your animals, and went away just for the opportunity to increase your knowledge, improve yourself. And I think that says a lot about the people we have here at Craig, Kelley & Faultless.
Ashley Napier: Yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more. I think that first and foremost from a staff perspective, we’re just so lucky that you guys invest in us and allow us to come to those conferences. So on behalf of the nine support staff, thank you David. Thank you Scott, the rest of the partners here for inviting us. But I also think it speaks to the fact that we brought our rapid response team. I didn’t meet another firm that had the head of their rapid response team and the rapid response team paralegal there.
David Craig: Yeah. And there’s so much that… So on Thursday, you guys were in with the lawyers the whole day. And so they were talking about how do you preserve evidence?
Ashley Napier: Correct.
David Craig: They were talking about what kind of data is available in these new trucks. How do you go about getting that? Spoliation, discovery, request for production, restraining orders. All that stuff was talked about and that is stuff that you guys deal with every single day and our rapid response team deals with.
Ashley Napier: Yes.
David Craig: And so I think it’s a disservice in some ways for a lawyer to go to those things and then expect their team to know what they know, and then they have to communicate everything they know. And so I just think it’s nice to have our people there listening to those… Thursday is the busiest day of the conference. That’s where everybody is packed into one giant room and there’s, like I said, over 250 people in that room. But a lot of it was stuff that my rapid response team and our file managers need to know.
Ashley Napier: Yeah, it was wonderful. I do think, too, each person sitting there has ears geared toward their job. So how does this apply to me? How can I tweak this to make this something that I can utilize in my day-to-day? And I do think, too, ATAA does a fantastic job at staying ahead of the curve, and we’re talking about Amazon cases, we’re talking about FedEx, we’re talking about UPS and the little nuances that some maybe general practitioners and ones that don’t specialize in truck driving might not have that type of knowledge base.
David Craig: Yeah, absolutely. There’s subcommittees on all those. Speaking of our paralegals listening to it, so one of our file managers, she’s sitting there, and it was on motorcycle/semi-wrecks. So a motorcycle and a semi obviously is a horrible result for the motorcycle. When you’re 40 tons and-
Ashley Napier: Catastrophic.
David Craig: … you hit a motorcycle and it’s catastrophic. And we have a lot of cases where motorcycle drivers were hit by semis and this summer seems one of the worst I’ve ever had where we’ve signed up a lot of those cases. And she has one of those cases. And so it was really good for her to sit there and listen to one of the best lawyers in the country talk about motorcycle semi-wrecks. And she was like, “Oh my gosh.” And she’s making notes-
Ashley Napier: Making notes.
David Craig: … and she was actually sending texts to us during the seminar.
Ashley Napier: Right, yeah.
David Craig: And I think that’s exciting. It’s good for your staff, but it’s good for your clients, too.
Ashley Napier: Absolutely. And it’s such a collaborative effort, too. When we come back, it’s like, okay, everybody’s really excited with all this new information. What changes are we making? So I’m looking forward to that follow up meeting with all 12 of us meeting. But there was one speaker that I loved on Thursday. It was towards the end of the day, and it was you.
David Craig: Yeah. You have to say that.
Ashley Napier: Well, I don’t. I don’t. It was unique. You provided such a different perspective than all the other like, “Here’s the case law, here’s what I’ve done in the past,” but you did something really unique. Do you want to talk about that?
David Craig: Yeah. All too often people think we’re against truckers, and I get truckers who get mad at us for stuff we post and they say things like, “It’s the car wrecks. It’s the car. It’s the four-wheeler’s fault. You’re always picking on truckers, you’re always suing on truckers.” And that’s not true. We do realize that some wrecks are caused by the drivers of the four-wheel vehicles. And I also realize that most truck drivers are good, caring, professional people who are trying to make a living, trying to support their families, and who are out there, want to get home safely and don’t want to hurt anybody. And those aren’t the people that we’re after, but we’re after the bad ones. And unfortunately, the bad ones have gotten worse over the years and there’s still a lot of bad ones out there.
But at the same time, what is a bad truck driver? And so my topic was basically how are truck drivers treated by motor carriers, by shippers and by receivers? And the reality is truck drivers are treated like crap by a lot of motor carriers, by a lot of shippers and a lot of receivers. There’s shippers and receivers where these truck drivers go pick up their load and where they drop off their load. And some of these facilities have signs on the restroom doors and say, “No truckers allowed.” They don’t let truckers come in and even use the bathrooms in their facilities. They make them sit there, and sometimes they wait as many as six hours to pick up a load. They want them there exactly on time. If they’re not on time, then they go back to the back of the row. If they’re even on time, sometimes they make them wait.
And so it’s not unusual for them to wait a couple of hours, even as long as six hours a week. They lose in what’s called detention time. And these drivers are not paid when they’re sitting, and they’re paid by the load or paid by the mile. And so then they have to make up that time. They’re treated… One of the Reddit-
Ashley Napier: Like the threads or whatever, right?
David Craig: Correct, yeah. One of the Reddit threads said, “We’re treated like animals.” And then truck drivers, they don’t get overtime. So they work 60, 70 hours a week. They’re paid for 30 to 40 hours a week if you average it out. And so truck drivers… And oftentimes their spouse has to stay home with the kids because he or she is the sole homemaker, and the other driver is the primary breadwinner. And so they’re relying on one income and that income on average is about $20,000 less than cost of living. And so when you’re not making very much money and you’re dependent upon your income, and your equipment’s not quite as good, and you think, “Okay, I’ll tell the motor carrier, my equipment’s not real good. I need to get my brakes worked on.” And they say, “No, go ahead and drive. We’ll fix it next time.” Now you’re in a tough spot because you need the money, you need the income.
And no truck driver thinks, “Okay, I’m going to go out and kill somebody.” They always think, “Okay, I can get by one more time.” And unfortunately, they can’t always. And so somebody gets hurt. So most drivers aren’t sitting there thinking, “I’m going to risk my life or the lives of others.” They’re just looking at it saying, “Okay, I’ve got to do what I’ve got to do. I’ve got to drive through the construction zone fast because I got to make up time for the time I’m not getting paid. I’ve got to hurry through the bad weather because I’ve got to make up time that I’m not getting paid for. I’m almost out of hours of service because I sat in detention.”
So I thought that it was an interesting spin because if you want to make the roads safer, in my opinion, treat the truck drivers right. Pay them properly, increase what we’re paying truck drivers. Sure, does it get spread out to all of us? Yeah, but so what? Who cares? Because I would rather the roads be safe and pay a little bit more for my products and have less people get killed on the highways.
Ashley Napier: Absolutely. I think everybody would think like that. Certainly, they make the economy run, so pay them for it.
David Craig: Absolutely. They’re the backbone.
Ashley Napier: Right.
David Craig: Everything, especially in this day and age where we want stuff immediately, you can order stuff and it’ll be delivered… The other day I was out of dog food in the office. I have dog food at my home but my dog comes to work, and my dog didn’t like the fact that I didn’t have any dog food here.
Ashley Napier: But I bet you had it in two hours.
David Craig: I had it within a couple of hours. It is amazing. And so if you want your stuff that quickly, if you want immediate gratification, then you’re going to pay for it. And let’s treat the truck drivers right. Let’s pay the truck drivers for their time. If you’re paying… And some trucking companies do. Some trucking companies will pay their drivers for detention time. Some trucking companies will pay them for their pre-trip and post-trip inspections. Some trucking companies will pay if they have to pull over for bad weather, but unfortunately it’s still the minority of the companies. And so if you want to make the road safer, let’s raise the $750,000 limit, liability limit, and then let’s pay these truck drivers a livable… They ought at least be making above the cost of living.
Ashley Napier: Oh, my gosh.
David Craig: And so let’s pay them right, treat them right, and we will all benefit. There’ll be less truck wrecks every single day.
Ashley Napier: Absolutely. Couldn’t agree with you more. And I just think it’s such an interesting spin that you provided, and I think it was… In looking at the room, all the attorneys taking photos of your slides and your… I just think it was wildly beneficial for those that were in attendance.
David Craig: One of the things we did, which I thought was pretty cool, was that I wasn’t going to assume that I knew how truckers were treated. I believed. I’ve seen the Reddit threads, I’ve seen the lawsuits that truckers are filing against the motor carriers. I’ve seen all that, but I didn’t want to assume that I knew. So I hired a company out of St. Louis, Missouri and said, “Hey, can you survey a hundred truck drivers and find out the answer to these questions?” And so we did. We surveyed, it turned out to be 109 truck drivers from all over the country; men, women, all different ages. Most of them drove semi-tractor trailers, but some of them drove buses and other commercial motor vehicles. But the majority, the big chunk was semi tractor trailers.
And we asked them and it was shocking. I’ll be discussing that, I think, on our weekly video series about how are these truckers? How did the truckers answer these questions? How do they feel like they’re treated by the motor carriers? How do they feel like they’re treated by these receivers? How are they treated by the shippers? And we’ll talk about that. So I would encourage you to flip over and check out our weekly series.
Ashley Napier: Yeah. And for anybody out there that might be experiencing that type of thing, you’re a truck driver or you’re married to one and are on the flip side of that, reach out. We would love to hear from you, just your own personal experiences. I think that would be really valuable.
David Craig: Yeah. If we want to change things, then let’s talk about it.
Ashley Napier: Yes.
David Craig: And if you’re a trucker out there and you’re being mistreated by a motor carrier, or you’re a trucker and you’re being [mis]treated by a receiver or a shipper or a broker, reach out to us, comment on our section, comment below our video. Let us know that because information is power, and the only way we can make changes is if we empower the good truck drivers and punish the bad truck drivers.
Ashley Napier: Yeah, absolutely. I think that one of the things that we pride ourselves in are being fantastic advocates for our clients. So we can also be fantastic advocates for those amazing truck drivers that are out there. So we’d love to hear from you, or we can send you on the road to different truck stops along the way.
David Craig: I’ve been invited to actually ride in a truck for a long period of time, but I think that I have other work to do.
Ashley Napier: Maybe. Maybe.
David Craig: So I don’t think that I can spend months riding in a truck.
Ashley Napier: Probably not months, no.
David Craig: But I can certainly talk to truckers.
Ashley Napier: Yes.
David Craig: And I’m always encouraged… We’ve had truckers on this podcast, on the not Ask David series, but on the After the Crash series. And so if you’re a trucker out there and you want to share your views, you want to talk to us about any of these topics, just reach out to us. We’re happy to have you on the podcast. Bring you in here and we’ll talk to you.
Ashley Napier: Yeah, that would be fantastic. I would love it. I would come spectate even though I won’t be hosting. I’ll spectate. But yeah, to wrap it up in a nutshell, Denver was fantastic. I’m looking forward to implementing all of the fun things that we learned.
David Craig: And you got to have a little bit fun too, right?
Ashley Napier: We did. We got to go to Golden, Colorado. We did a little bit of hiking, which was fun, along the river there. We got to hear some pretty good speakers that morning talking about the Montgomery decision. On Saturday, that was one of my favorites, just…
David Craig: And the broker, that’s a new broker Supreme Court 9-0 ruling, which helped clarify what the law was. And so yeah, no, we always learn a lot. It’s great to share ideas, bounce stuff off of each other, but it’s also good for, I think, camaraderie to get to spend time with your people.
Ashley Napier: Yeah, especially outside of the office. You get to learn who people are and just what amazing people we get to work with every single day. So I very much look forward to it every year. I think next year we’re back in Austin, which will be fun. Did I leave anything out, any-
David Craig: No, I think it was great.
Ashley Napier: Pardon the interruption, acts and omissions section.
David Craig: No, you did great.
Ashley Napier: All right. Well, thank you guys all for tuning in to the After the Crash Ask David edition. We look forward to seeing you guys next month. Take care. Bye.
David Craig: Thanks for listening to another episode of After the Crash. If you or someone you know has been involved in a semi-truck wreck and you want to talk, go to ckflaw.com or give me a call at 1-800-ASK-DAVID. If you want additional information about semi-truck wrecks or how to pick the right attorney, check out my two books, Semitruck Wreck: A Guide for the Victims and Their Families, or It’s Never Been Easier to Hire the Wrong Attorney. Both of them are available on Amazon, or you can download them for free on our website, ckflaw.com.
