Can You Trust The Driver Logs after a Truck Crash? Ohio Attorney Rhonda Baker Debevec

You've just been involved in a truck crash. The investigating officer has told you the driver's log were up to date but you're left wondering why should I trust that driver's logs. My name is Rhonda Baker Debevec. I'm a personal injury lawyer here in Cleveland, Ohio. I'm here to talk to you about we at the Spangenberg law firm investigate the accuracy of a driver's log. First of all, we don't take it at face value -- at all. We've learned through our experience that there are often times inaccuracies and sometimes just flat out lies in the driver's log book. So what do we do? One of the things we do is hire a truck driving expert that we've worked with in the past who knows the rules, knows how they're supposed to be maintained. We have -- we look at them, review them very carefully. We also have our expert review them. But that's not enough. We do a process that I call in lots of different scenarios, I fact check it. I don't take it face value. I ask for every receipt the driver turned in, every expense report. One of the things the driver's log has to record is every stop. So if the log is accurate, the stop time and the location of the refueling (for instance) should match up with the gas receipt. Because you're darned straight that this driver is not paying for that gas typically on their own. They're turning that receipt in. So we check the receipts. One of the other things we can do is most of them have what's called 'E-Z passes' for the turnpikes. And they record when the E-Z pass is used. So we can check it that way too. We can figure out where they were at a particular time and if it makes sense with traffic conditions, with the weather, that they really would have been able to travel from point A to point B in that amount of time. The other thing that we can sometimes do is some of the trucks are equipped with global positioning systems. And just like your phone or other things that have GPS on them, they can actually tell us to the dime where that truck was at any point in time. So that can be helpful, especially if the driver was claiming that they were sleeping at a particular time which they have to do under federal law. Sometimes we can prove that actually a truck was moving. If the truck is moving, the driver better not be sleeping. So there's lots of different techniques and systems we can use to try to figure out whether that driver's log really is accurate. The reason we want to know if it's truthful and if it's accurate is we want to know if the driver was breaking the rules. We want to know if he really had the rest -- he or she had the rest -- they were supposed to, whether they were doing what they were required to do. If you're wondering whether your truck driver that was involved in your crash was playing fast and loose with the driver's logs, give us a call. We'll find out. My name is Rhonda Baker Debevec. I'm a personal injury lawyer here in Cleveland, Ohio. Thank you for listening.