Oilfield Truck Accidents Cause One-Third of Industry's Fatalities

July 15, 2012

Oilfield Truck Accidents Cause One-Third of Industry's Fatalities

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is experiencing a boom across the country and has created revenue for municipalities and jobs for workers. These jobs are often dangerous and require exposure to hazardous chemicals, but one of the most dangerous oilfield activities is driving and riding in the trucks used to haul materials.

Between 2003 and 2008, a third of the nearly 650 oilfield worker deaths that occurred were caused by highway crashes, higher than the average across all industries. In the last decade, 300 oil and natural gas crewmen have lost their lives in highway truck accidents. Unfortunately, lax government policy may be to blame for the disproportionate number of deaths caused by these accidents.

FMCSA Oilfield Exemption: Source of the Problem?

Unfortunately, government policy likely contributes to the high motor vehicle accident fatality rates among oilfield workers. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) rules contain an hours-of-service exemption for oil well service truck drivers.

Under the FMCSA's oilfield operations exemption, drivers of oil well service trucks do not need to include the time they spend waiting at a well site in their on-duty time. Instead, the waiting time is counted as off-duty time but noted as "waiting time" in hours-of-service logs. Waiting time is also not included in calculating the 14-hour driving period, which means a driver's driving period is extended by these waiting hours.

Exemption Causes Fatigue and Accidents

These exemptions have serious safety consequences for oilfield crews. In one recent, fatal motor vehicle accident, an Ohio oilfield crewman was killed when the driver of the truck he was riding in fell asleep at the wheel and crashed into a highway sign.

The driver was three hours and 50 minutes into a four-hour drive back to company headquarters following a 17-hour shift--four hours more than is allowed for drivers in other industries--because he was an oil well driver.

Unfortunately, a 17-hour shift is not the longest possible under the exemption. Twenty-hour or longer shifts are common for oil well service truck drivers, and one trucker, in a letter to the FMCSA asking for changes in the law, had waited 36 hours at a well site without a place to sleep before he was able to resume work, unload his truck and turn around to head home.

With the current boom in fracking, safety issues like truck driver fatigue will likely increase unless the exemption is changed or removed from the FMCSA's rulebook. Until action is taken, however, more oilfield crew members and other highway users will continue to suffer fatal accidents due to lax rules. If you or a loved one has been injured or killed by a fatigued oilfield truck driver, please contact an experienced Texas personal injury attorney.

Article provided by The Law Firm of Alton C. Todd
Visit us at www.altontodd.com