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Trucking Industry Responds to Accident Debate

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Trucking Industry Responds to Accident Debate

As the economy begins to regain its strength, those who work to keep the trucking industry as strong as it is are working even harder than usual with the current accident debate. There’s no question that trucking is the backbone of this country’s economy. More goods are transported across the United State’s highways which means there is more pressure on truck drivers to deliver their loads on time. The current debate between the trucking industry and safety advocacy groups regards the number and cause of trucking accidents in the United States. Many safety advocacy groups have pushed rest regulations for the truck drivers, but the government and the trucking industry are wary of how many restrictions are put in place. The industry has reminded the advocates to think about how much harm it could cause long term for the country.

Dave Osiecki, executive vice president of national advocacy for the American Trucking Association, says that the new rules will increase risk. He says the rules can have negative results because reducing a driver’s hours means less work for them, therefore more trucks will need to be on the road. If the advocacy groups are looking to decrease the number of accidents on the highway, why add more trucks to the roads? At this rate, according to the American Trucking Association, the industry will need to add about 100,000 truck drivers every year for the next decade in order to keep up with the rapid growth of the industry. The trucking industry is most vehement about the mandatory “restart” to a work week. The restart would begin after a trucker drives for two consecutive nights. Drivers will be required to rest between 1 and 5 a.m. The industry says that these rules put truck drivers on the road during the morning rush hours with greater congestion and more passenger vehicles on the road. Those in charge of the fleets try to have their drivers on the roads in the early morning before the road rush of the day begins.

The Consumer News and Business Channel (CNBC) has recently brought this debate to surface. CNBC is currently running a series of investigative questions about the cause behind the thousands of trucking accidents that take place every year. The investigative series is titled “Collision Course.” More than 100,000 injuries happen every year in truck crashes but the number of fatalities have gone up since 2009 as the economy continues to improve. In response to the CNBC Collision Course series, Osiecki  responds with the following statement:

“According to the data that we’ve seen, seventy percent of those crashes are initiated by, unfortunately, someone other than the truck driver. The car driver, the SUV driver, so we’re responsible for thirty percent of those crashes.”

CNBC has shed light on a tragedy from eight years ago regarding a man named Dan Lindner. He lost his entire family in a trucking accident in 2006 when a flatbed truck ran into the back of his wife’s car. Both vehicles burned up in flames. The second story that CNBC has hyped up is the accident involving celebrity Tracy Morgan and a Walmart semi. These two incidences seem to be the inspiration behind CNBC’s decision to investigate. CNBC has been conducting rounds of interviews across the industry gathering different opinions about the rest regulation rules put in place by the Obama administration.

CNBC conducted interviews within the industry and with regulators and lawyers along with victims of any trucking crashes. The results affirm that there are many different reasons behind the accidents along with multiple causes for the deaths. The reasons vary between overtired drivers, companies not screening for driver problems, and slow government action for new safety technologies on the roads. The most interesting reason for a crash is passenger vehicles veering in and out of the lanes in the way of slow semi trucks.When Osiecki was asked about the problems of everyone else on the road beside the truck drivers, he said the problem is the “motorists who aggressively pass trucks, cut in front of trucks, who tailgate trucks and who linger on the side of trucks.” Osiecki’s response reminds America that perhaps CNBC should shed some light on the problems of the thousands of passenger drivers on the road.

Of all the opinions to gather, a truck driver’s opinion should weigh heavy on the news corporation. Kalvin Simon has been a truck driver for seven years and he doesn’t risk anyone’s safety when it comes to fatigue: “If I get tired,  I pull over and stop. It’s that simple.”

The safety regulation rules take away from some of the freedoms of a truck driver. These rules also take away from the flexibility of a driver’s work schedule. Brian Fielkow, president of Jetco Delivery, reports that the hour regulations has shortened productivity within the industry. Yet again, more trucks would be placed on the roads, only increasing the chances of a collision. “The new rules certainly didn’t protect against the tragedy we’re talking about today,” he said.

Bill Graves, president of The American Trucking Association (ATA), responds to CNBC by saying that, “Your piece painted a picture where every fatality in a truck-involved crash was the fault of the truck driver. This just simply is not true.” ATA has facts from a federal database of fatal crashes that driver fatigue was the problem in only less than two percent of accidents involving semi trucks. Five months ago, ASA filed a lawsuit asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to repeal these new safety rules. The rest regulation rules have already been relaxed once and the trucking industry will continue to stand strong with this industry debate.

 

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  3. Trucking Industry Discusses Benefits of Natural Gas Usage, Contemplates the ‘Next Big Fuel’ During ATA Summit


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Trucking Industry Responds to Accident Debate

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