Trucking attorney Jim Mahoney's law practice encompasses trucking and cargo loss litigation, claims management, compliance management, and operations consulting.
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OSHA's Many Applications to the Trucking Industry
OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, has been around since 1970. It’s part of the U.S. Department of Labor.
For the majority of its investigative and corrective penalty work, OSHA focuses on company non-driving activities. But it does cover motor carrier and transportation industries that involve safety, generally at stationary work sites such as warehousing, loading docks, and freeway safety.
Of course, it doesn’t intrude on FMCSA regulations about CMV drivers on the road, but it does oversee loading, unloading, and construction site heavy truck use.
Your indemnity clauses with shippers, receivers, and brokers are always in play. So, you must take account of them in situations involving OSHA regs as you do with simple roadway load moves. Even more so: experience teaches about indemnity language you may not think of when executing contracts.
OSHA Regulations that Influence Trucking Operations
- Generally ensuring a safe and hygienic workplace.
- Hazardous material marking, labeling, and handling.
- Cargo tiedown tools and material.
- Inspection of fire safety and first aid capabilities on a site.
- Ensuring all safety procedures are followed during loading or unloading. Collisions and back overs are an ever-present danger at loading docks.
- Train drivers on “driveaways” and “trailer creep” that occur when trailers separate from docks, creating a gap that workers and equipment can fall through.
- Same with guiding a driver backing into a tight dock. Drivers may need guidance, but they need to get out of the cab and walk to the back of the trailer and then use a spotter to maintain safety.
- A hidden trouble spot you may not always anticipate is that OSHA protects whistle blowers reporting alleged unsafe conditions, whether they are activity problems or exposure to toxic material.
OSHA has a lengthy list of citations for the transportation industry and diligently investigates reports of unsafe conditions. They do thorough investigations.
Share Information and Train on Safe Practices
How does OSHA affect bodily injury or death cases?
OSHA safety guidelines are designed to make trucking safer, even when a truck is on the road. Loading, securing, and hazardous material handling procedures are not always taught or followed.
Opening a barn-door trailer with a load falling on a dock worker increases a motor carrier’s chances of being implicated in the loss. Even if it was a shipper’s load.
Crushing a dock worker who isn’t warned off from a backing trailer ensures a motor carrier and receiver will engage in protracted indemnity litigation.
If a driver attempts to climb onto the dock without using the available stairs, you, the motor carrier who happily signed that contract with the shipper /receiver might find yourself losing a client and defending a lawsuit because of poorly worded indemnity language.
So:
- Don’t blissfully sign a contract with a counter-party without legal help.
- Do train your drivers and dock workers on OSHA regs.
- Learn the methods of OSHA investigations and know the defenses to OSHA violations before they occur.
