I'm not a law firm or insurance company! I have worked in the freight and parcel industry for many years and I have a relatives and close friends who currently work for UPS, DHL, FedEx, Yellow and Roadway. I've worked for Ward Trucking and Yellow Freight and I still have my CDL. I'm definitely not a blood sucking attorney, because my hands still get dirty when I come home from work.
Actually... I'm collecting information from professional route drivers, police accident reports, internet sources and compensation cases pertaining to vehicle accidents and worker injuries caused by unsecured hand trucks. I was told from two friends who work for UPS that Brown Cafe was a huge resource of information and professional drivers that may have witnessed or heard of these types of events.
Last month I was contacted by a UPS driver who personally witnessed a hand truck fall from a Pepsi Cola truck on I95 north bound. (Philadelphia area) A vehicle behind the beverage truck attempted to swerve around the hand truck, however the car hit the hand truck, knocked it into another vehicle and then he rolled his car several times. The driver of the first car was thrown from the vehicle and remains injured for life.
I patented a new retaining apparratus that quickly and safely secures commercial hand trucks to route delivery vehicles. We started a new company that markets a new safety and productivity device to the commercial delivery industry. We were asked by several large and small beverage, freight and parcel companies if we could verify accidents, injury and liability issues that could effect their businesses and leave them vulnerable to liability.
www.handtrucksystems.com or Google: HTS Ultra-Rack
When I heard about this female driver that was badly injured, the story came from a UPS driver that was informed about it during a UPS safety meeting a few years back. The other question that I curious about is that on rare occasions I have seen some UPS drivers secure their hand truck to the right corner on the rear running board and stretch a rubber strap through the hand truck down to the door latch (Hyde Park NY.) I also found a photo of a UPS route driver doing the same in Washington DC. I thought this was a little dangerous for the highway.
If anyone out there has seen or heard of these types of accidents, it would be great to hear from. We sincerely appreciate your help.