pearlpro
Expert Expediter
Trucking industry needs to be forced to make things safer - mcall.com
I think each of us should write this guy telling him what the real truth is...hes obviously a biased writer with little or no facts, but here his article
TRUCKING INDUSTRY MUST BE FORCED TO MAKE THINGS SAFER
The U.S. trucking industry raked in around $610 billion in 2013, and those riches are expected to nearly double by the end of next year, according to the legal profession's Legalinfo.com website.
Meanwhile, the website said, 98 percent of the fatalities in crashes involving trucks and passenger vehicles "occur to the individuals in the passenger vehicles." That can hardly come as a surprise to anyone who contemplates the effects of a 40-ton object squashing an object that weighs a ton or two.
Other statistics from the U.S. Department of Transportation are just as disturbing, but not as disturbing as the image of the crash nearly two weeks ago at the Interstate 78 bridge toll plaza just west of the Pennsylvania-New Jersey line, south of Easton.
The trucker in that tragedy was not identified until charges were lodged Thursday. Robert W. Gawne Sr., 55, of Allentown was charged with homicide by vehicle, involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and other offenses in the death of Daniel C. Murphy, 65, of Hackettstown, N.J.
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Murphy burned to death or choked to death from smoke, it was reported, after Gawne's rig hit a wall, went airborne and landed on Murphy's station wagon, which was stopped at a toll booth. Murphy was on his way to work in Bethlehem Township at the time. Gawne escaped before both vehicles were consumed by fire.
The Morning Call's story on Friday said Gawne, who had an extensive criminal record including years spent in prison, told police he fell asleep at the wheel. And that takes us back to the topic of statistics.
The DOT says more than 4,000 people were killed in 2011 in crashes involving large trucks and buses, and more than 94 percent of those fatalities were occupants of small passenger vehicles. Most of the time, truckers like Gawne walk away unscathed.
The number of people killed in passenger cars in such crashes that year was more than 300 times as big as the number of people killed annually, on average, in school and college shootings over the past 14 years.
Can you imagine the uproar if we had 300 times as many people killed in school shootings as we do now? Yet politicians are silent about the thousands of innocent people killed by 40-ton trucks. Methinks that a little of that $610 billion may be applied to the cause of keeping pols in the trucking industry's pocket.
When you are driving around the Lehigh Valley, where there has been an explosion of trucking warehouses in recent years, you may get the idea there are more trucks clogging up our roads than there are cars. The DOT, however, says that there are 22 times as many people driving passenger cars as there are people driving big rigs.
That means there are 22 times as many voters in four-wheelers as there are in 18-wheel behemoths. The trucking industry may be mobilized to buy politicians, but if people start finding out which politician actually represents whom, and vote accordingly, there could be a shift in influence.
If you are as bothered by the image of that I-78 crash as I am, you might want to call your various representatives to ask some pointed questions.
I have driven back and forth across America more than two dozen times in my life, and I know how to avoid falling asleep at the wheel (knock wood). Truckers and their bosses must know it too, but greed keeps them at the wheel when they should be getting some sleep.
There must be other measures that also could ward off drowsiness, such as, perhaps, a requirement for truck drivers to report to a dispatcher or affirm information provided by a GPS system every 15 minutes, or any number of little tasks that cannot be performed half asleep or dead drunk. There is a special need for extra vigilance in the case of somebody operating a vehicle that is 20 times as big as other nearby vehicles.
That is the biggest danger involving trucks, and is one of the key elements reflecting the greed of the trucking industry. Size kills just as fast as it translates to profits.
If America went back to supporting the railroad industry (trucks use 10 times as much fuel as trains to haul the same amount of cargo), we would not need 40-ton monsters, which cannot stop in an emergency even if the driver is awake. We could prosper with rigs half that size (and half the potential for lethal battering-ram mayhem).
Keep in mind that politicians are so devoted to subsidizing the trucking industry they have arranged for truckers to pay essentially the same fuel tax as the drivers of sedans. That is despite the fact that studies showed any large truck causes 9,600 times as much damage to highways and bridges as any single car.
If fuel taxes were fair, truckers would pay 9,600 times as much tax per gallon as other motorists, and then we'd see how many payoffs they'd make to politicians in the form of "political campaign contributions."
Truckers will squeal like pigs if anybody suggests anything that puts a crimp in their profits. They will prattle on about how much we consumers would suffer if not for trucks bringing us stuff. They will fib about how they pay lots and lots of road-use taxes. They will tell even bigger fibs about how they are devoted to safety.
The raw truth, however, was revealed on Jan. 13, just south of Easton.
[email protected] 610-820-6176
I think each of us should write this guy telling him what the real truth is...hes obviously a biased writer with little or no facts, but here his article
TRUCKING INDUSTRY MUST BE FORCED TO MAKE THINGS SAFER
The U.S. trucking industry raked in around $610 billion in 2013, and those riches are expected to nearly double by the end of next year, according to the legal profession's Legalinfo.com website.
Meanwhile, the website said, 98 percent of the fatalities in crashes involving trucks and passenger vehicles "occur to the individuals in the passenger vehicles." That can hardly come as a surprise to anyone who contemplates the effects of a 40-ton object squashing an object that weighs a ton or two.
Other statistics from the U.S. Department of Transportation are just as disturbing, but not as disturbing as the image of the crash nearly two weeks ago at the Interstate 78 bridge toll plaza just west of the Pennsylvania-New Jersey line, south of Easton.
The trucker in that tragedy was not identified until charges were lodged Thursday. Robert W. Gawne Sr., 55, of Allentown was charged with homicide by vehicle, involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and other offenses in the death of Daniel C. Murphy, 65, of Hackettstown, N.J.
» The latest on traffic, delays and road construction delivered to your mobile phone. Click to sign up to receive text alerts!
Murphy burned to death or choked to death from smoke, it was reported, after Gawne's rig hit a wall, went airborne and landed on Murphy's station wagon, which was stopped at a toll booth. Murphy was on his way to work in Bethlehem Township at the time. Gawne escaped before both vehicles were consumed by fire.
The Morning Call's story on Friday said Gawne, who had an extensive criminal record including years spent in prison, told police he fell asleep at the wheel. And that takes us back to the topic of statistics.
The DOT says more than 4,000 people were killed in 2011 in crashes involving large trucks and buses, and more than 94 percent of those fatalities were occupants of small passenger vehicles. Most of the time, truckers like Gawne walk away unscathed.
The number of people killed in passenger cars in such crashes that year was more than 300 times as big as the number of people killed annually, on average, in school and college shootings over the past 14 years.
Can you imagine the uproar if we had 300 times as many people killed in school shootings as we do now? Yet politicians are silent about the thousands of innocent people killed by 40-ton trucks. Methinks that a little of that $610 billion may be applied to the cause of keeping pols in the trucking industry's pocket.
When you are driving around the Lehigh Valley, where there has been an explosion of trucking warehouses in recent years, you may get the idea there are more trucks clogging up our roads than there are cars. The DOT, however, says that there are 22 times as many people driving passenger cars as there are people driving big rigs.
That means there are 22 times as many voters in four-wheelers as there are in 18-wheel behemoths. The trucking industry may be mobilized to buy politicians, but if people start finding out which politician actually represents whom, and vote accordingly, there could be a shift in influence.
If you are as bothered by the image of that I-78 crash as I am, you might want to call your various representatives to ask some pointed questions.
I have driven back and forth across America more than two dozen times in my life, and I know how to avoid falling asleep at the wheel (knock wood). Truckers and their bosses must know it too, but greed keeps them at the wheel when they should be getting some sleep.
There must be other measures that also could ward off drowsiness, such as, perhaps, a requirement for truck drivers to report to a dispatcher or affirm information provided by a GPS system every 15 minutes, or any number of little tasks that cannot be performed half asleep or dead drunk. There is a special need for extra vigilance in the case of somebody operating a vehicle that is 20 times as big as other nearby vehicles.
That is the biggest danger involving trucks, and is one of the key elements reflecting the greed of the trucking industry. Size kills just as fast as it translates to profits.
If America went back to supporting the railroad industry (trucks use 10 times as much fuel as trains to haul the same amount of cargo), we would not need 40-ton monsters, which cannot stop in an emergency even if the driver is awake. We could prosper with rigs half that size (and half the potential for lethal battering-ram mayhem).
Keep in mind that politicians are so devoted to subsidizing the trucking industry they have arranged for truckers to pay essentially the same fuel tax as the drivers of sedans. That is despite the fact that studies showed any large truck causes 9,600 times as much damage to highways and bridges as any single car.
If fuel taxes were fair, truckers would pay 9,600 times as much tax per gallon as other motorists, and then we'd see how many payoffs they'd make to politicians in the form of "political campaign contributions."
Truckers will squeal like pigs if anybody suggests anything that puts a crimp in their profits. They will prattle on about how much we consumers would suffer if not for trucks bringing us stuff. They will fib about how they pay lots and lots of road-use taxes. They will tell even bigger fibs about how they are devoted to safety.
The raw truth, however, was revealed on Jan. 13, just south of Easton.
[email protected] 610-820-6176
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