The artificial intelligence boom is poised to expand into 2025, bringing with it exciting new solutions for fleet operations. Improved large language models will be able to tackle significantly more complicated tasks, boosting safety and efficiency.
Jeremy Wolf
Artificial intelligence—especially machine learning—has already transformed the transportation industry in a short few years. As carriers look ahead to 2025, they can expect the information revolution to continue.
The nature of AI’s usefulness for transportation, however, will remain the same: quicker, simpler data and insights.
“The biggest benefit of AI—applied to fuel purchasing, route optimization, equipment utilization, and safety—is the immediacy of information,” Adam Kahn, chief business development officer at Netradyne, told FleetOwner. “Can you get more data-driven decisions around what’s happening with your operation?”
AI tools today already help carriers process and utilize vast amounts of information. For 2025, AI’s capabilities and influence will likely grow even further.
AI in transportation today
What is AI, machine learning?
The term artificial intelligence is vague. Any machine that uses perception, learning, or decision-making can be called AI. This means nearly every computer built in the last several decades contains programs that fit some loose definition of AI.
A more precise term is machine learning, a form of AI where computers learn from existing data to make inferences without explicit instructions. Autonomous vehicles, large language models, and predictive analytics are all examples of machine learning applications.
Machine learning solutions make up a vast majority of the AI market, causing many people to use the terms interchangeably.
The greatest uses of AI in transportation today are for data processing and analysis. Carriers can leverage machine learning to automatically draw inferences from existing data—or to quickly digitize existing paperwork.
“AI is the aggregation of a lot of data and creating useful workstreams around that data,” Kahn explained. “If you can take a lot of information and apply some reasoning against it, then there should be growing opportunities around where to buy fuel or what routes to assign to a vehicle.”
When technology leaders discuss the potential of AI applications for carriers, there are six areas that stand out: data analysis, fuel efficiency, route optimization, asset management, safety, and autonomous driving.
The number of industry solutions with the word “AI” attached to them are too many to count. Here are just a few examples of recent AI solutions for each area:
Netradyne
How AI will shape trucking in 2025
Artificial intelligence will continue its boom next year. The chip manufacturing market has a bright future, and large language models show a steady rate of improvement. What’s more, AI might unlock new solutions for fleets in 2025.
Improving chip market, AI capability
The AI hype cycle
Only a few years ago, people commonly discounted AI applications as “not real intelligence” once the applications became popular. This changed, however, after extremely charismatic generative AI tools entered the scene. Image generation with DALL-E and text generation with ChatGPT skyrocketed the popularity of AI in 2022.
Now, AI is a fashionable marketing buzzword sometimes used to mislead and deceive customers. Some firms predict AI is at the peak of its hype cycle and about to burst. Others predict the valuation of AI will continue to grow at a breakneck pace.
Valuations of chip manufacturing exploded with the AI boom, skyrocketing the worth of companies like Nvidia and AMD. The semiconductor market is soaring and projected to continue growing with demand for AI.
A booming semiconductor market suggests greater access to—and demand for—AI tools over time. However, some businesses predict a global chip shortage could bottleneck access to AI solutions.
Large language models are still improving at an exponential rate. They are continually able to process more complex tasks as their context windows grow.
AI tools also face a slimmer chance of government regulation next year. An incoming Trump administration means AI regulation is less likely than under a Democratic administration, Kahn suggested.
“Restrictions around regulating AI will maybe open up to allow for more independent commerce to figure out what it really means—versus having the government tell you what it’s not going to be,” Kahn told FleetOwner.
New AI applications for fleets next year
AI technology will likely continue to improve in 2025, and AI solutions will become more widely available. But what improvements are important for fleet operations?
Paul Pallath, VP of applied AI for Searce, pointed to three areas where AI could change transportation in 2025—AI agents, multimodal data management, and video generation.
AI agents
Large language models ((LLMs) are one of the most potent AI developments in recent years. LLM developers are looking to make the technology even more impactful.
Agentic AI, sometimes called robotic process automation, may be the next major development for large language models. This technology places a single AI chatbot in front of the user for commands—but behind the chatbot lies an intricate stack of multiple AI tools.
Users can ask the agent to perform a data-centric task in a similar conversational way that they would ask an employee. Layers of LLMs could perform, review, and automate the processes required for the overall task. Getting an invoice number or reconciling multiple invoices could be done much more quickly—and simply—with the help of agentic AI.
AI giants like Google with Gemini 2 and Nvidia with Blueprints are already developing agentic AI to solve more complicated tasks.
“The premise of Gemini 2 is that it enables agentic AI at scale that allows us to now have autonomous bots … that manage multiple different intelligent bots that are task-specific large language models,” Pallath said.
Multimodal data management
One application already growing in popularity is using AI to consolidate disparate forms of data. Paper forms and video feeds contain helpful data—but joining them in a single spreadsheet for a fleet’s TMS can involve a lot of manual labor. AI-powered image and language processing could automate the process.
“LLMs are multimodal, which means that it can connect with data, which is textual information, audio information, and video information, and process it in one go,” Pallath said. “If I’m asking for something, and if this information is in three disparate sources, LLMs now have the capability to summarize all of these, take the entire context, and give me a response.”
AI is already turning video feeds into automated truck logging and driver distraction detection.
“There are pockets where AI is thriving. Video-based telematics is moving very aggressively in that space,” Pallath said. “There has been a monumental shift in the results of that, where you see increased accident reduction and increased driving risk reduction.”
In addition to videos, AI tools could also consolidate paperwork such as bills of lading or audio recordings of customer transactions into more accessible formats. Paired with AI agents, using and accessing several types of information could become much easier.
Video generation
Pallath also suggested that AI video generation could become much more useful in 2025.
Similar to large language models, AI video generators have entered an arms race. Companies like Google and OpenAI continue to launch competing AI video generators that appear more and more convincing.
Paired with technical documentation, Pallath said AI video generation could soon create training videos for maintenance operations.
ID 324969265 © Doberman84 | Dreamstime.com
AI image generation fails to make accurate depictions of sophisticated technology, like engines. Depicted here is what AI thinks an engine bay looks like.
AI-generated video content is still far from accurate, especially when it comes to technical subjects. Even AI-generated images fail to depict advanced machines accurately, but Pallath believes the technology will continue to improve quickly.
“It is weak, but the rapid pace at which it is becoming better is absolute,” Pallath said. “I’m sure that in the first half of the year, this technology will be robust enough for us to leverage towards the second half of the year.”
Ultimately, however, Pallath stressed that companies should keep ethics top-of-mind when they consider implementing AI.
“When we think about creating these AI interventions across businesses, thinking through responsible and ethical use of AI—and what should I as a company do or not do with AI—is going to be paramount,” Pallath said.
Mark Murrell
The human toll of a collision should never be underestimated – even if there are no physical injuries, the mental stress can be enormous. However, during that experience, drivers still have responsibilities and need to follow some best practices when it comes to accident scene reporting. One of the ways you can help is by making sure they’re clear on what they need to do after you’ve established that they are safe.
Some of those driver responsibilities include stopping and securing the cargo and reporting the incident to the authorities. However, one of the things that sometimes gets missed is how much a driver should document for the company’s own files (and the insurer’s) so that the event can be understood by everyone who gets involved later. With that in mind, here is a documentation cheat sheet you can use when developing a response plan for your drivers to follow.
Note: This covers a small (but extremely important) requirement when a crash occurs, but it shouldn’t take priority over other obligations the safety manager or crash response team has – including finding out if the driver is okay, notifying loved ones, and so on. Consult with your executive team or legal counsel for a fuller view of these responsibilities.
Reinforce with your drivers that they should record:
Basic information
This may seem too basic to be needed, but remember that the event will be pieced together later on by people who were not there, so having your driver get even the most basic information down can be crucial:
- Driver information should include their name, address, phone number, date of birth and license number, expiration date, and state or province of issue.
- Carrier information should include their DOT or CVOR number, insurance policy details, company name, address, and phone number.
- Vehicle info includes the year, make and model, color, unit numbers for the tractor and the trailer, and plate numbers.
- And don’t forget to include the time and location of the event!
Incident details
A standard accident report will ask for information like the make, model, and color of the other vehicles involved, as well as personal information about the other drivers and any passengers. It will also help if your driver can write down, while the memory is still fresh, an account of vehicle movements during the incident, including direction, points of impact, traffic signals, and vehicle movements such as making a turn, backing up, skidding or weaving, and more. Note: it will also be important to detail your driver’s own status, including on-duty status and driving hours, distance traveled on the current trip, speed at the time of the incident, and any warning signals they gave or witnessed, such as brakes, indicator lights, horn, etc.
External factors
People looking at the incident much later on (especially insurers) will be keen to know about the road conditions at the time of the incident. Be sure your drivers take note of its physical condition, like how wet or slippery it is, the presence of debris or other obstacles, its grade, curve, and whether the road has potholes or cracks. They should also take note of the traffic conditions – were people trying to merge, was there a railway crossing, was traffic heavy or light, and what was the posted speed limit? Make sure they describe the weather conditions, including how sunny or dark it was, whether there was fog, sleet, or other precipitation, and, in case of darkness, what the road lighting was like.
Legal and other players
While the police may be busy collecting information themselves, it’s important for the driver to take down details about the authorities involved—including badge numbers, who contacted them, the agency the police belong to, whether anyone was charged, and what the charge was (as well as arrests, if any). There will also likely be towing and cleanup vehicles present – make sure to keep detailed notes on these! Unscrupulous towing companies will sometimes exaggerate the number of vehicles present or the time spent, so making clear notes about this can help later on if there is a dispute about exaggerated fees.
Photograph…everything?
The point of all of this is that more information is better when it comes to figuring out what happened. But even if everything else is written down in great detail, there may be some critical scene information that’s not on this list. Encourage your drivers to take photos of the scene (respectfully, of course). Even just a panoramic shot of everything can sometimes reveal details that might have otherwise been missed or forgotten.
Again, this is not to suggest that worrying about documenting the scene of a crash should take precedence over looking out for your driver’s well-being. But navigating a crash incident is a bit of a long game—you’ll be dealing with stakeholders sometimes for years after the fact, so if you can help your drivers remember everything they need to do once they are safe, you’ll be able to deploy resources more effectively when you’ve got the information you need.
Following are two articles regarding the $100M verdict against Werner Enterprises. If you or one of your commercial trucks is involved in an accident, please engage help. Get someone you trust, and of course I am glad to help – JoelBeal@JBATelematics.com. No mater what you think about the facts of the case, preparedness is key.
Texas Supreme Court hears Werner’s controversial nuclear verdict case
Tyson Fisher
The Texas Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a controversial nuclear verdict case involving Werner Enterprises that has a wide range of stakeholders calling for tort reform.
On Tuesday, Dec. 3, attorneys for Werner, a truck driver and victims of a fatal crash stated their case in front of the Texas Supreme Court. Last year, the 14th Court of Appeals in Texas affirmed a lower court’s nine-figure verdict finding the trucking company and its driver liable for a 2014 crash.
Werner’s case has left trucking and legal stakeholders scratching their heads. Despite all the facts suggesting the truck driver did nothing wrong, plaintiffs’ attorneys convinced a jury otherwise. At the center of oral arguments on Tuesday was the level of duty a truck driver owes to motorists traveling on the other direction of a divided highway.
Attorneys also argued whether a legal doctrine known as the Admission Rule should be formally adopted in Texas. That rule could prevent a trucking company’s practices, policies and overarching operations and culture from being used in certain crash lawsuits.
2014 crash
The Texas Supreme Court case stems from a lawsuit filed by the family of Zachary Blake and Brianna Blake. Zachary, who was 7 years old, was killed in the crash with a Werner truck. Brianna, who was 12, was rendered a quadriplegic.
On Dec. 30, 2014, the Blakes were traveling east on Interstate 20 in Texas in a pickup truck driven by Zaragoza “Trey” Salinas. Weather conditions were icy at the time. Salinas lost control of the vehicle going 50-60 mph and careened across a grass median, entering the westbound lanes.
At this time, Shiraz Ali was driving a truck for Werner going west on I-20. He was driving below the speed limit when the pickup truck began to spin. Also present in the Werner truck was Jeff Ackerman, a Werner driver-trainer. According to the appellate brief, Ali reacted within half a second, hitting the brakes.
Even the Blakes’ expert witness conceded that Ali’s reaction was “very quick” and “appropriate to the conditions.”
In addition to Salinas making statements suggesting guilt and responsibility, a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper defended Ali’s actions. Trooper Villareal, a 17-year veteran who investigated the accident, concluded “this is truly an accident,” Ali “didn’t do anything wrong” and there was nothing Ali “could have done to avoid the collision.” A higher-ranking trooper who approved the report concurred.
More details of the crash can be found here.
Werner on the hook for more than $100M
During the trial, plaintiffs were allowed to present evidence that had no direct proximate effect on the crash in order to persuade the jury that Werner’s culture and policy had caused it.
This evidence included:
- Details about Werner’s training and supervision of Ali
- Werner’s lack of a “command center” for weather monitoring
- Werner’s handling of crash investigations
- Claims of Werner’s driving school director being unqualified
- Werner’s failure to require a CB radio
- Werner’s failure to require an outside temperature gauge
Werner argued, however, that this evidence had nothing to do with the crash in question and that relevant evidence insufficiently supported a finding of negligence.
In 2018, a jury found Werner 70% liable, Ali 14% liable and Salinas 16% liable. After calculating all damages, the jury award for the plaintiffs was in excess of $100 million. In May 2023, a state appellate court affirmed the ruling.
Duty of care
A question critical to the case in front of the Texas Supreme Court is where to draw the line when determining a truck driver’s duty of care to other road users.
Representing Werner and Ali, attorney Thomas Wright argued that drivers should not have to anticipate someone coming into their lane from the opposite side of an interstate with a 30-plus-foot median between them. Although motorists can foresee another vehicle encroaching into their lane in icy conditions when going the same direction, it is unreasonable to believe a car coming from the other direction is also foreseeable.
Wright conceded that a trucker owes a duty of care to react appropriately once a wayward vehicle enters his or her lane. In this case, both sides acknowledged that Ali reacted quickly and safely.
Representing the Blakes, attorney Darrin Walker argued that a cross-median crash was foreseeable considering the weather conditions. Supporting that argument, Walker pointed to the CDL manual, which states that drivers should slow down to about 15 mph during inclement weather. Ali was traveling at about 43 mph.
“The purpose of this rule is mainly to protect other motorists, because passenger vehicles are even more likely than an 18-wheeler to lose control on icy road conditions, and we don’t want an 18-wheeler going highway speeds on icy roads when another motorist loses control in front of it,” Walker said.
Admission rule
Werner is asking the Texas Supreme Court to adopt what is called the Admission Rule, which could determine the fate of nuclear verdicts like Werner’s.
The company has argued that since it accepted responsibility by admitting Ali was in the course and scope of employment, plaintiffs cannot pursue “derivative theories of negligence.” Under the Admission Rule, once an employer establishes liability, “evidence of the employer’s hiring, training or supervision practices becomes inadmissible as irrelevant and likely to prejudice the jury,” according to the law firm Lewis Brisbois.
In this case, the appellate and district courts rejected the Admission Rule by allowing a variety of evidence dealing with Werner’s companywide policies and training. This in turn allowed plaintiff attorneys to use a tactic known as reptile theory, which evokes emotions of fear and anger in jurors to encourage nuclear verdicts. As Lewis Brisbois put it, “This company was so terrible you should punish them, regardless of whether any of our evidence showed the company or its driver’s actions actually caused the subject crash.”
The Admission Rule has been adopted in several states. In Texas, courts are split on the rule, with some adopting it and others – like the 14th Court of Appeals – rejecting it.
Werner is asking the Texas Supreme Court to cement the Admission Rule into state legal precedent.
During oral arguments, Werner said that a trucker’s entire day is on trial. Rather than focusing on what a driver did immediately before and during a crash, juries are considering irrelevant information about the company.
(H3) What should have been a quick trial turned into a six-week circus dissecting every decision made by Werner.
“We wanted to make this case about everything except for the three-second accident sequence,” Wright said. “It was all about trying the company.”
Walker argued that the Admission Rule disincentivizes employers from training and supervising their employees. He said that the negligence of the employer and the negligence of the employee both contribute to an injury.
“I think it’s unfair to hide that from the jury and then foist liability that would ordinarily fall on the employer onto the untrained employee,” Walker said.
The following groups have filed amicus briefs in the case, all of them supporting Werner’s bid for the Texas Supreme Court to adopt the Admission Rule:
- Acuity Insurance
- American Trucking Associations
- Schneider National Carriers
- Texas Association of Defense Counsel
- Texas Civil Justice League
- Texans for Lawsuit Reform
- Texas Trucking Association
- Trucking Industry Defense Association
- U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Texas Supreme Court Hears Werner’s $100M Verdict Appeal
Attorneys Spar Over Jury Award in 2014 Fatal Accident
Eric Miller
Attorneys for Werner Enterprises have asked the Texas Supreme Court to reverse a $100 million verdict against the company in a case involving a fatal accident. The case centers on a 2014 crash in which a pickup truck crossed a median and struck a Werner truck traveling in the opposite direction on a snowy highway.
Werner has during trials in lower courts steadfastly maintained that its driver could not have avoided the crash and did not share any of the fault. However, a Texas jury in a 2018 trial was instructed that it could apply a “proximate cause” legal standard in the case. A proximate cause is defined as a partial cause that was a substantial factor in bringing about an injury, and without which such injury would not have occurred. The court ruled that there was sufficient evidence to support a finding that insufficient training and supervision for the Werner driver behind the wheel at the time “proximately caused the collision.” An appeals court upheld that ruling, prompting Werner to take its case to the state’s highest court.
In oral arguments on Dec. 3, Werner attorney Thomas Wright told the court that Werner driver Shiraz Ali could not have foreseen that a pickup truck would suddenly cross an icy divided highway and strike the carrier’s truck. He further argued that the appeals court deviated from legal precedent in upholding the lower court ruling, and “disregarded all the cases from the Texas state courts and around the country’s lower courts.” Wright added that the appeals court, “for the first time has held that a driver in his own lane under control of his vehicle is liable when somebody on the opposite side of an interstate highway loses control, spins out, crosses over a 30-foot median plus the shoulders, runs into the driver in his own lane with no time to react.”
Countering Wright’s stance, Supreme Court Justice Jane Bland asked, “Is it reasonably foreseeable that on an icy day that there may be lane intrusion by someone if not this exact scenario traveling across a highway median, but somewhat skidding and entering your lane?
Wright replied, “It’s certainly foreseeable somebody in the next lane could come into your lane, but you cannot realistically travel down the highway in any kind of weather if you have to anticipate that somebody without warning leave the interstate lane 30 feet across. That’s why they built the interstate highway system, to keep these cars separated. What’s the point of having an interstate?
Wright continued, “We believe that the plaintiff’s way to decide the case is to say he had no duty to people across the road. …If I thought that driving down the [divided] highway afraid that somebody would lose control, come across and hit me and it would be my fault, I might just stay home.”
Arguing on behalf of the plaintiffs in the case, attorney Darrin Walker suggested that the Werner driver should either have been “driving very slow or pulling over during icy conditions, and that at the time of the collision was driving too fast.”
“The road was like a skating rink,” Walker said. “It was covered in ice, cars were going off the road left and right, and there were two cross-median collisions in this case.” He acknowledged, however, that the Werner driver did not encounter those crashes.
“In some cases there may be some circumstances whereas a matter of law a cross-median collision is not foreseeable and the driver does not have to take any precautions,” Walker said, “but in this case the evidence was clear that a cross-median collision was foreseeable.”
The crash resulted in the death of 7-year-old Zachery Blake, catastrophic permanent injuries to 12-year-old Brianna Blake, significant injuries to 14-year-old Nathan Blake and the Blake children’s mother, Jennifer Blake.
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Werner objected to the 2018 jury’s finding that the driver and company were negligent, and also to the court judge’s decision to allow certain evidence in the case. Additionally, Werner objected to the jury’s award of future medical care expenses for the plaintiffs.
Werner maintained that at the time of the accident, Ali was “proceeding in his lane, in control of a Werner tractor-trailer and well below the speed limit, when the [plaintiff’s] vehicle suddenly careened into his path, leaving him no time to avoid a collision.”
Despite this, the lower court jury found both Werner and Ali liable and assessed the award, according to court documents.
Trucking industry groups have come forward to support Werner in legal briefs filed with the Texas Supreme Court. They include American Trucking Associations, the Texas Trucking Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Texas Civil Justice League.
“In recent years, trucking companies have faced a growing trend of so-called ‘nuclear verdicts’ in highway accident litigation — verdicts that are not only shockingly large, but which, like the verdict here, are fundamentally unfair in that they are untethered to the realities of the case,” ATA wrote in a brief filed with the high court last month.
Werner ranks No. 16 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest for-hire carriers in North America and No. 4 on the truckload/dedicated sector list. It also ranks No. 30 on the TT100 of the largest logistics companies in North America.
Bahar Gholipour
CHICAGO — The familiar tune of the Bee Gees song “Stayin’ Alive” has been used for medical training for quite a few years now: It has the right beat — not to mention, the perfect title — for providing CPR’s chest compressions at the right pace to revive a patient.
The 1977 hit song has a rhythm of 103 beats per minute (bpm), which is close to the recommended rate of at least 100 chest compressions per 60 seconds that should be delivered during CPR. Plus, the song is well known enough to be useful in teaching the general public to effectively perform the lifesaving maneuver.
In fact, the American Heart Association (AHA) officially recommends that if you see someone collapse, you should “call 9-1-1 and push hard and fast in the center of the chest to the beat of the classic disco song “Stayin’ Alive.” The AHA has gone as far as depicting the act in an educational music video featuring comedian and physician Ken Jeong.
But although the song seems to be the perfect soundtrack for CPR, it does have some drawbacks. Namely, it is an American song, so not everyone around the world is familiar with it. However, there are other songs with the right beat that might do just as well, according to researchers in Japan.
In a new study, Dr. Yoshihiro Yamahata, of Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, and his colleagues tried using new songs to instruct a group of newly hired nurses to perform CPR. The researchers presented their findings this week at the AHA meeting in Chicago.
“The quality of CPR is the key to [helping] the victim recover,” Yamahata said. “Our solution to master adequate CPR skills is to put the educational words on several famous songs with 112 bpm and 8 beats” per measure, he said.
Receiving high-quality CPR can double, or even triple, a person’s chance of surviving cardiac arrest outside the hospital, according to the AHA. For effective CPR, the AHA recommends delivering at least 100 chest compressions per minute, making each compression at least 2 inches (5 centimeters) deep and ensuring full “recoil,” meaning the chest wall returns to its original position between each compression.
Joseph Bui
Civil cases generally only result in monetary damages or orders to do or not do something, known as injunctions. A criminal case may involve both jail time and monetary punishment.
The American justice system addresses the wrongdoings that people commit with two different types of cases: civil and criminal.
Generally speaking, criminal cases are offenses against the state, even if immediate harm is done to an individual. Accordingly, they are prosecuted by the state in a criminal court.
On the other hand, civil cases typically involve disputes between parties regarding the legal duties and responsibilities they owe to one another. In general, family law disputes and personal injury cases are civil cases. These cases are handled through civil lawsuits that are prosecuted in civil court.
Although there is some overlap between civil and criminal cases, there are several ways in which you can tell the difference between a criminal case and a civil case.
Criminal Case vs. Civil Case: Distinctions
Here are some of the key differences between a criminal case and a civil case:
Crimes are considered offenses against the state, or society as a whole
Criminal offenses and civil offenses are generally different in terms of punishment
The standard of proof is very different in a criminal case versus a civil case
Criminal defendants have a constitutional right to a trial by jury
Defendants in a criminal case are entitled to an attorney and will be assigned a public defender if they cannot afford one
More protections are afforded to defendants in a criminal trial
Crimes are Offenses Against the State
Even though one person might murder a particular person, the murder itself is considered an offense to everyone in society. Accordingly, crimes against the state are prosecuted by the state. The prosecutor, which is generally the district attorney or city attorney, files the case in court as a representative of the state. If it is a civil claim, then a private party files the case.
Differences in Punishment
Because criminal cases have greater consequences, including the possibility of jail and even the death penalty, criminal cases have many more protections in place and have a higher standard of proof.
The Standard of Proof
Everyone accused of a crime is presumed to be innocent until they are proven guilty. In general, crimes must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, whereas civil claims are proven by lower standards of proof, such as the preponderance of the evidence.
“Beyond a reasonable doubt” means the prosecution has provided evidence that proves that there is no other reasonable explanation outside of the defendant’s guilt.
“Preponderance of the evidence” means it is more likely than not that something occurred in a certain way.
The prosecutor in a criminal proceeding has the burden of proving that the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. This is known as the burden of proof.
Under this burden, the defendant has no obligation to prove their innocence. The standard of proof the prosecutor must meet is much higher than in a civil case. After all, criminal convictions, such as felonies and misdemeanors, tend to carry heavier consequences for a defendant than civil penalties do in civil suits.
Jury Trials
Criminal cases almost always allow for a trial by jury. Civil cases do allow juries in some instances, but many civil cases will be decided by a judge alone in what is referred to as a bench trial.
The Right to an Attorney
A defendant in a criminal case is entitled to an attorney. If they can’t afford one, the state must provide an attorney. Defendants in a civil case don’t have the right to an attorney. If they can’t afford one, they’ll have to represent themselves.
Defendant’s Rights and Protections
The protections afforded to defendants under criminal law are considerable. An example is the protection against illegal searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment. Many of these well-known protections aren’t available to a defendant in a civil case.
The Same Conduct Can Result in Civil and Criminal Liability
Although criminal and civil cases are treated very differently, many people often fail to recognize that the same conduct can result in both criminal and civil liability. Perhaps one of the most famous examples of this is the O.J. Simpson trial. The same conduct led to a murder trial (criminal) and a wrongful death trial (civil).
In part, because of the different standards of proof, there wasn’t enough evidence for a jury to decide that O.J. Simpson was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in the criminal murder case. In the civil trial, however, the jury found enough evidence to conclude that O.J. Simpson wrongfully caused his wife’s death by a preponderance of the evidence.
| Doug Marcello |
Why It Matters
Risk reduction and denuclearization is not solely the responsibility of safety and risk departments. Every department can – and must – act within their powers to reduce exposure to liabilities.This is even more important in an era of deductibles/retention and captives. The all-out effort in every department protects the public, preserves company profits, and deflates an existential threat.
What’s the Problem
There is a misconception that risk is limited to being a safety and risk department problem. Impose procedures. Minimize claims.
Moreover, safety and risk are misconceived as company burdens. They restrict profits. They erode the bottom line. Burdens.
While safety and risk lead to risk reduction, it must be a company-wide effort. Every department can contribute to do what they can to minimize exposure.
Unfortunately, these other departments are incentivized to the contrary. Sales to get loads. Recruiting to fill seats. Operations to route. Maintenance to keep wheels turning.
All these functions have elements of risk. Yet few companies incentivize, let alone focus, on reducing these risk-bearing elements. In today’s environments, it is a “must” to do so.
What Can Be Done
Safety and risk is not just external, addressing interaction with the motoring public and billboard lawyers. It is also an internal endeavor evangelized to all departments:
- Sales: Risk-based pricing. Load pricing is market drive. But that pricing cannot ignore risk. The risk inherent in a load that goes to a litigious or accident-fraught location.I have clients that lament the costs of cases in “hellhole” jurisdictions. Yet, they priced the load to that location priced for less risky locations.
Sales must fulfill that role. Loads must be priced for the potential exposure. Or declined if the price does not factor the risk.
I know, easy for me to say as an attorney. But I’ve seen the alternative and the losses suffered by the failure to include risk or exposure in the pricing calculation.
- Recruiting: Exposure starts with drivers. Their actions, and their pasts, are potential detonators.“Filling the seat” indiscriminately feeds the frenzy of the billboard attorneys. As I’ve said before, for them it’s not about the accident, it’s about the company. Systemic failures.
Questionable (dubious) hiring lobs them a soft one. The billboard attorneys can attack the company for hiring an unqualified driver to operate an 80,000-pound truck among the motoring public.
The defense starts with hiring. Qualified drivers. Defensible backgrounds. Training to address deficiencies.
Again, easy for me to say. But I’ve seen the alternative…and what it costs.
- Operations: How can operations reduce risks? They just direct traffic.Answer: A lot. First, driver management is vital — hours of service, fatigue, weather … all of these are potential detonators.
Second, routing is risk-related. Telematic companies provide insight into the most dangerous roads, days of the week, times of day. These are invaluable insights that can minimize risk if employed in routing.
And one of the largest recent verdicts included an argument that weather should have been considered in routing.
Third, detention time. The American Transportation Research Institute’s recent study found increased risk when there is excessive detention time. Not just rushing to make up time, but even en-route to get the load.
- Maintenance: Functioning vehicles reduce risk. Not just by avoiding failure-caused accidents, but by minimizing driver distraction and rushing due to lost time.Plus, post-accident inspections that reveal pre-accident defects are fodder for the argument of billboard attorneys that there is a systemic failure that requires a big verdict. “The company couldn’t even keep their vehicles compliant. How do you think the rest of the company operates?”
The Big Thing
Multi-departmental safety and risk requires one overarching commitment: A safety culture. It starts at the top. With the folks who are responsible for, judged by, and profit from the bottom line.
In my current presentation, “Safety Profit,” I preach the message of this full-court press by the entire company and all departments to protect profit – and the company itself. Management must buy in and make clear their commitment to the message.
When that happens, safety and risk are no longer a burden. They are a profit. Keeping money on the bottom line by stemming the hemorrhage.
Bottom Line
Safety and risk will determine your bottom line. But all departments can and must contribute. Make sure this message reaches all and is effectively enforced. |
