Reportedly, Ferraro Foods, an East Coast distribution company, is being accused of violating federal trucking regulations. Allegedly, the company forced its drivers to exceed the limit of hours on the road that is allowed by law, causing a serious threat to highway safety and increasing the risk of trucking accidents.
According to the company’s website, Ferraro Foods was founded in 1975 and its company headquarters are in Green Brook, New Jersey, with a distribution center in High Point, North Carolina. They have over 100 tractor trailers and deliver to 16 states from Georgia to New York.
A whistleblower lawsuit was filed in early September, 2013, which claimed that Ferraro Foods management encouraged drivers to forge their logs and lie in an attempt to avoid detection. According to a former Ferraro Foods employee, Roy Chanson, he was fired after he proposed to fix the company’s practices. Chanson claims owner Michael Giammarino and other members of management “reacted negatively,” froze him out of decision making, “ostracized” him, and finally fired him in the fall of 2012.
The complaint raises allegations that Giammarino favored white employees over African Americans, even going so far as to allow white employees (including a semi driver and a fork-lift operator) who failed drug tests to keep their jobs. The lawsuit also alleges that management encouraged semi drivers to shut down or manipulate tracking devices in order to “avoid detection by authorities such as the Department of Transportation and law-enforcement authorities.” In addition, the lawsuit alleges that management required drivers to complete routes in “virtually impossible short times.”
Federal trucking regulations regarding hours of service are designed to help prevent accidents that result from fatigue and distracted driving. However, if companies encourage, or even force, their drivers to violate these regulations, they can have little effect on highway safety. If you or a loved one was injured in a trucking accident involving a Ferraro Foods truck, contact an experienced trucking accident attorney immediately.