Personal Injury Blog

Truck Safety Supervisor Sentenced in Bribery Scandal

January 27th, 2012
bribery scandal

A former trucking safety supervisor of the US Department of Transportation was sentenced last week to 18 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to a bribery scandal.

A former trucking safety supervisor of the US Department of Transportation was sentenced last week to 18 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to a bribery scandal.

The man allegedly accepted bribes from some trucking companies to allow them to keep their defective trucks on the road, while, in other cases, the bribes were taken to give favorable audits. This is a scary incident which should concern any San Diego trucking accident lawyer concerned about the safety of the tractor-trailers on our roadways.

James H. Wood was sentenced to 18 months in prison, and was also ordered to forfeit $41,300 to the federal administration.  In January, he had been charged by the US Atty.’s Office with a number of crimes, including taking bribes from trucking companies in order to give them favorable audits.  He was also found to have taken bribes from companies in order to initiate audits.  In some cases, he provided trucking companies information that would allow them to keep their defective trucks on the road.  He also postponed safety inspections for some companies, thereby ensuring that the trucking companies would clear inspections with satisfactory ratings.

According to the US Atty.’s Office, he accepted bribes from consultants who mainly worked for Canadian trucking companies.  He also provided these companies with a lot of internal agency information.  This included names of trucking companies that were in line for audits.  In June, he pleaded guilty to these charges.

He has since lost his $80,000 job with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration as a trucking safety field supervisor for the Buffalo area.  It isn’t clear how long Wood was able to get away with these illegal dealings.

Incidents like this should be a concern to San Diego trucking accident attorneys, motorists and truckers who depend heavily on federal and state trucking safety agencies to keep the tractor-trailers plying our nation’s highways is safe.  Incidents like these are liable to shake confidence in the system.

A truck accident in San Diego can lead to severe injuries or deaths.  Trucking companies are held to certain standards.  Those standards include a responsibility to maintain safe and well-maintained trucks.  Trucks that are not in a condition to be operated must be taken off the fleet until they have been serviced.  Additionally, trucking companies must maintain high standards in the kind of drivers that they hire to operate these massive vehicles, including conducting drug and alcohol tests at the time of employment as well as at random, to make sure that drivers are driving the vehicle in a sober condition.

Posted by Robert Reeves at 10:29 am: No comments

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