Jeffrey Burns Lawyer Reviews & Ratings - Kansas City

Jeff Burns succeeds at truck crash litigation because he knows the industry inside and out. A leading expert on federal motor carrier regulations, Burns makes it a point to stay at the forefront of developments in the trucking industry. Since joining Dollar, Burns, Becker & Hershewe in 2005, he has worked to inspire a cultural shift in how trucking companies regulate driver fatigue. Burns serves as a member of multiple federal committees on transportation safety and also works with grassroots organizations such as Parents Against Tired Truckers.. Jeff became involved in truck safety “literally, by accident.”  “Many years ago,” Burns recalls, “in my first truck crash case I represented a client who had lost his wife and two daughters, ages 6 and 9, in a crash caused by a fatigued truck driver. I had a daughter about the age of the younger girl at the time,” he notes, “and the more I learned about the trucking industry by working on that case, the more I was afraid of putting my family on the highway. I was shocked to learn that 1 in every 5 truck drivers admits to have fallen asleep at the wheel in the last 30 days.”. “That first case was a life-changing event for me,” states Burns. “Standing in the weeds next to the highway at the scene of the crash, I promised the girls’ father their deaths would not be in vain; that I would make sure that their loss would make a difference.”  He spent much of the next twenty years in Washington, D.C. working on the issues, trying to improve safety rules, and advocating for more enforcement and more public awareness of the problem in fulfillment of that promise. “No one had heard of truck driver fatigue back then and the issue still doesn’t have the public awareness it needs,” he notes.