Minimum insurance increase would make trucks a larger target

Statements often become clichés because they are true. For instance, using the phrase “rolling piggy banks” to describe the way many perceive truck drivers may not be a fresh take on the situation. But it remains an apt one.

For some politicians, the answer to budget woes is to shake (some might even call it a “shakedown”) some loose coins out of truckers’ pockets to pay for any number of pet causes.

Take Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont for instance, who signed a highway-use tax that only affects trucks. The state hopes to rake in $90 million from the new fee, which will cost some truckers as much as 17.5 cents per mile.

Illinois Rep. Chuy Garcia is another politician who thinks truckers should be squeezed for even more money. He’s once again the driving force behind an amendment to the U.S. House of Representatives highway bill that would hike mandatory insurance minimums for commercial vehicles by 167%. It seems to be a transparent attempt to increase the amount of money paid out to trial lawyers who want to bring personal injury claims against trucking companies. We’ll come back to that in a second.

Even criminals see big bucks when they watch tractor-trailers rumble down the roadways. And it’s not just in terms of the filthy lucre that could be had by swiping the cargo.

No, nowadays the most brazen crooks are cashing in by crashing into trucks as they make their way down the highway.

We’ve been writing about this “Operation Sideswipe” scheme in New Orleans for over a year now. If you haven’t heard all the details, get your popcorn ready. It sounds like a plot line from the “Fast and Furious” movie franchise.

What we know is that at least one personal injury attorney in New Orleans was paying a ring of “slammers” to deliberately crash passenger vehicles into commercial trucks. And that those vehicles were loaded with passengers who, for a cut, were prepared to say they were injured in the wreck and seek damages from the trucking companies and their insurers.

More than 30 people have been charged and most have pleaded guilty, including one “slammer” who admitted to staging hundreds of these crashes, for which he was paid over $100,000.

One crash with a C.R. England truck netted a $4.7 million payout. The carrier has since filed a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, or RICO, civil lawsuit, trying to get the money back.

The personal injury lawyer – Danny Patrick Keating Jr. – pleaded guilty in June to one count of conspiracy.

Let’s go back to Rep. Garcia’s plan to increase the insurance minimums. Would increasing the mandatory insurance minimums make truckers an even more attractive target for those brazen enough to try for a “sideswipe” payout?

Even an amendment that would have attempted to discourage this behavior was thwarted by partisan politics.

The House highway bill rejected an amendment proposing stiff fines and prison sentences for those who intentionally cause a crash with a commercial motor vehicle. Under the amendment, a person operating a motor vehicle who intentionally causes a crash with a commercial motor vehicle would be imprisoned for no less than 20 years.

There are a number of reasons why jacking up the insurance minimums for truckers won’t do anything to improve public safety, but this proposal could have the unintended consequence of creating more Operation Sideswipe-style copycats, emboldened by the notion that they may stand to net an even fatter payday. It’s really just painting a bigger bull’s-eye on those “rolling piggy banks.”

Just one more reason the industry should be united in its opposition to the measure. LL