ATLANTA, Ga. (InvestigateTV) – Driving behind a dump truck feels like a game of roulette. Rocks could fall out, damaging your windshield or causing a crash.
You’ve probably noticed those stickers warning you to stay back and that the trucks aren’t responsible for broken windshields. But did you notice something missing?
How about license plates?
In Georgia and most other states, dump trucks aren’t required to have license plates or any other identifying marks on the back of the vehicle.
In place since 1965, Georgia’s regulation says, “trucks and trailers which routinely engage in activities wherein it is inevitable that a motor vehicle license plate attached to the rear thereof would be defaced, destroyed or lost, shall display the motor vehicle license plate assigned to it by attaching it to the front of the vehicle.”
So, ironically, the reason you can’t identify the truck that damaged your windshield is because the same kind of rocks and debris could damage their license plate.
“It’s very interesting they have no problem keeping those stickers on the back that say not responsible for objects coming from the road, stay a hundred feet back or whatever,” said Andrew Lampros, an Atlanta plaintiff’s attorney. “But they can’t seem to keep any identifying information on the trucks.”
Lampros himself has had to pay for three windshields in the last three years, all from damages from dump trucks.
“One in Tennessee, two in Georgia,” Lampros said. “I couldn’t catch up to them because of traffic and it wasn’t safe. But there was no license plate on the back of the truck.”
The stickers and signs on the back of dump trucks offer no legal protection, according to attorneys.
“They say they’re not responsible for objects coming from the road,” Lampros said. “That’s true. Nobody is, but they are responsible for objects coming from their trucks if they fail to secure their load properly.”
The problem is proving the rock came from the truck and not the road.
After three windshields, Lampros bought a dash camera.
Jamie Hurley wishes he had a dash cam when a rock hit his windshield in Forsyth County last November. “The rock came through, hit dead center of the windshield and sounded like a gunshot,” Hurley said.
The driver of the county dump truck immediately stopped and called police. But because Hurley had only his word that the rock came from the truck, he had to pay $2,700 to replace the high-tech windshield himself.
According to the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office body camera recording, the deputy told the truck driver, “This isn’t really an accident, so we don’t really decide whose fault it is. We’re just going to document that he said a rock came out of your truck, and you said you’re hauling asphalt.”
Only 11 states don’t require tarps or coverings for dump trucks. Georgia is one of the 39 states that do, but our investigators spotted several trucks with loose tarps barely covering the loads.
“The minimum standard of what looked like a loincloth on these trucks was enough to meet the minimum standard,” Hurley said. “It just fell back on me.”
Lampros said windshield claims rarely succeed. “The burden of proof is on the person who is asserting the claim against the company or the truck,” he said. “And I have to prove it was them who did it, that the rock came out of the truck and not off the road. And it was due to their negligence. They had not properly secured the load. So they have several easy defenses.”
Windshields are the number one auto insurance claim in the nation. More than 7.5 million claims are filed for auto glass every year, according to the Insurance Journal. Eighty percent of those are for windshields.
The American Automobile Association reported 200,000 crashes from road debris over a four-year period. More than a hundred people are killed in such crashes every year.
Copyright 2024 InvestigateTV. All rights reserved.