U.S. Department Of Transportation And FMCSA Shuts Down BM&L Trucking, LLC

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) recently ordered Alabama-based BM&L Trucking, LLC to cease all of its transportation operations. FMCSA based the order on the fact that BM&L’s transportation operation contained safety violations which posed an imminent hazard to the public safety of multiple states in the region.

In its investigation, FMCSA found several factors that deemed BM&L Trucking’s transportation services as an overall imminent hazard to public safety. First, BM&L Trucking failed to establish a program that would monitor the hours of service for their truck drivers. The government has established federal safety regulations that impose certain requirements on drivers in terms of how many hours of service a truck driver can work. BM&L Trucking allows truck drivers to drive above the maximum amount of service hours. This potentially allows for more tired and fatigued truck drivers to operate motor vehicles. Second, BM&L Trucking does not have a pre-employment program meant to test for controlled substances. There are federal safety requirements that require transportation workplaces to have controlled substance testing programs for prospective and current employees. BM&L Trucking did not possess any program in terms of ensuring that its truck drivers can safely operate a vehicle. BM&L also did not have any kind of vehicle maintenance program in place, did not require drivers to either inspect their vehicles or complete reports, and did not maintain any records on vehicle performance and maintenance.

Since BM&L Trucking operated across state lines, these safety violations could have resulted in a Missouri truck accident. For instance, FMCSA’s hour of service requirements are usually stringent: the requirements limit the amount of time a truck driver can drive in a single day or a single time period. It also mandates that drivers must sleep for a certain period of time. Allowing dreary and fatigued truck drivers to operate large trucks greatly increases the risks of negligent or poor driving. This also highly increases the risk of a Missouri truck accident with serious or fatal injuries. On top of this, it is very well possible that a fatigued driver could also be under the influence of a controlled substance. This also highly increases the risk of a vehicle accident. BM&L also did not keep any record on maintaining its vehicles. This potentially allows its employees to drive out-of-service or defective vehicles without the company having knowledge of this. A sudden and unexpected breakdown of a large truck could have serious implications for fellow motorists and can cause a serious accident.

FMCSA imposes these kinds of regulations to best ensure that the public is safe from the behavior of trucking companies that can endanger innocent motorists.

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