Trucks are so dangerous

Original source: The New York Times, McAleer Law,

Sydney Morning Herald

“Everyone seems to have a story about a crazy truckie speeding, tailgating, driving all night, or on drugs. And in the industry there are plenty of stories about bosses who threaten drivers, forcing them to drive unsafe vehicles or work in unsafe conditions to get the load delivered on time. These cowboys need to be kicked out of business.”

So says Michael Bryne, managing director of Toll Group, Australia’s biggest trucking company.

Yet, America’s Congress tried to do the exact opposite. In 2015, responding to pressure from company owners, it pushed to lower the minimum age from 21 to 18 for drivers of large trucks hauling goods interstate. And, by reducing their mandatory rest breaks, to increase the hours drivers could drive from 70 hours a week to 82.

In America, there are 500,00 accidents involving trucks each year killing thousands of people in the cars they crush.

Source: cla78/Shutterstock

These attempts to change the rules were ultimately unsuccessful. Just as well. Around 500,000 trucking accidents occur each year in the US, killing over 700 truck drivers and their passengers as well as 3,700 people in the cars they crush.

So in just one year, American trucks kill more people than have died in that country’s commercial airline crashes in the past 45 years.

Sixty-eight percent of fatal truck accidents happen not in US cities, but in rural regions. More than half of all them occur during the day and almost 80% take place on weekends. Surprisingly, the majority of large truck crashes happen when the weather is clear and the roads dry (71%). And over 25 percent of them are caused by truck drivers with at least one prior speeding conviction prior to the fatal accident.