Pennsylvania State Trooper Dies in Accident

State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan announced the tragic death of 47-year-old Trooper First Class Blake T. Coble of Troop D, Beaver Station after he was killed in an automobile wreck last Thursday. Coble was on duty Oct. 4 when he was struck by a semi at 10 a.m. at Black Hawk Road near Route 168 in South Beaver Township.

According to news reports, Coble’s patrol car was struck by the tractor-trailer when the truck driver went through a stop sign at the intersection. No charges have been filed against the driver of the truck, who has been cooperating with investigators, state police said.

In a press release announcing Coble’s death, Noonan said:

“He [Coble] died serving the people of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the men and women of the Pennsylvania State Police mourn his loss and extend our sincere condolences to his family and friends. […]

One in Five Violation Rate Not Acceptable, Pennsylvania Truck Accident Lawyer Says

Scranton, PA, September 08, 2012 — Truck accident attorney Marion Munley said today that national inspections of 74,072 trucks and buses that resulted in one-fifth of the vehicles being removed from the road should raise concerns for the sponsoring Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA).

The CVSA said in a recent news release that its 25th Annual Roadcheck, a commercial motor vehicle (CMV) safety enforcement and outreach event, inspected a record number of trucks and buses.

The organization said 22.4 percent of CMVs and 3.9 percent of drivers were placed out of service, or removed from the road, after the inspections. The CVSA said those vehicle and driver OOS rates represented the second-lowest in the program’s history.

Munley, a nationally recognized Pennsylvania truck accident lawyer with the Scranton personal injury firm of Munley Law, said those numbers were still too high.

“It’s certainly a concern when one in five of the tractor-trailers and other big-rig trucks that trucking companies continue to put on the road are in such poor shape that they should be removed from the road before they cause an accident,” she said. […]

Two Dump Truck Accidents Result in Fatalities

Two dump truck accidents have claimed the lives of Pennsylvania residents.

• According to Times-Tribune.com, a 17-year-old recent high school graduate was killed when her vehicle was involved in a crash with a dump truck on Aug 13.She was pronounced dead at the scene. The crash occurred in Windham Township when the teen, traveling east toward Mehoopany, crossed into the path of a dump truck.
• On Aug. 9, a man was hit and killed by a dump truck in Schuylkill County on Aug. 9, according to news reports. The McAdoo resident was hit along South Kennedy Street in McAdoo. He died a few hours later at Lehigh Valley Hospital.

We have recently posted about dump truck accidents and the reason they are involved in so many serious, sometimes fatal truck accidents. From that Nov. […]

Pennsylvania Receives Truck Safety Award from U.S. DOT

The Pennsylvania State Police announced this month they received the prestigious 2012 Safety Enforcement Improvement Award from the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).

The award, presented at the FMCSA’s annual leadership conference, is presented to the one state “that demonstrates the greatest improvement to its truck safety enforcement program in terms of cost efficiency and traffic enforcement.”

“This achievement is truly a great honor for the Pennsylvania State Police and our motor carrier enforcement partners,” said State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan when announcing receipt of the award.

More than 100,000 trucks were inspected in PA in 2011, representing a 35 percent increase over the number of inspections performed just three years ago, according to the press release.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports in 2010, the most current year of data, […]

PA Truck Accident Lawyer Applauds Move to Kill Truck Bill

Scranton, PA, February 23, 2012 — Pennsylvania tractor-trailer accident lawyer Daniel W. Munley, chairman of the American Association of Justice’s Trucking Litigation Group, today applauded a Congressional committee’s move to kill part of a bill that would have reduced trucking safety on the nation’s highways.

“Proposals in the bill under consideration would have increased allowable weight and length of transfer trucks to dangerous levels,” said Munley, a partner in the regional law firm of Munley, Munley & Cartwright, whose Pennsylvania truck accident attorneys focus on tractor-trailer litigation throughout the Northeast.

“We’re glad the House transportation bill will move forward without measures that would have threatened safety on our highways,” Munley said.

Portions of a bill before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee would have overturned the 1991 federal ban on triple tractor trailers and raised the weight limit on transfer trucks and other commercial vehicles (CMVs) to 97,000 pounds from the current limit of 80,000 pounds, […]