Truck Crash

Safety Advocates and Families of Truck Crash Victims Call on Biden to Reform Trucking Safety

April 5, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

“We’re hopeful that…Biden will be the one,” said Daphne Izer, who lost her teenaged son Jeffrey when he and three of his friends were struck by a Walmart truck in 1993 on the Maine Turnpike and killed. The truck driver had fallen asleep at the wheel of his tractor trailer.

Many family members of truck crash victims believe that they now, finally, have an advocate and an ally in the White House in President Biden, following many years of a lack of federal oversight in regards to these kinds of crashes and the deaths they cause.

A group of survivors and family members who, between them, have lost 28 people to roadway truck crashes, wrote a personalized letter to President Biden urging him to align with their common cause and requested more action from the White House in regards to trucking safety and in the prevention truck-related collisions on American roadways.

Biden lost his own wife and daughter in a deadly crash in 1972, and survived the incident himself. When the letter was announced, signatories mentioned his recent visit to the grave of Neilia, his first wife, and his daughter, Naomi, who both died in the tractor trailer collision. Biden’s two young sons were injured, but fortunately survived the crash.

The incident was investigated, but had no criminal charges filed against the truck driver.

Izer signed the letter, along with her husband, Steve, in collaboration with the Truck Safety Coalition, a group that works to boost efforts from the government in decreasing numbers of American truck crashes, injuries, and fatalities. According to recent numbers, more than 5,000 people died in large truck-related crashes in 2020, and that number has continued to rise over the last few years.

“The public is being massacred on the highways by big trucks, and it’s unnecessary,” said president emeritus of non-profit consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, Joan B. Claybrook. Claybrook is also the previous head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

In the letter, these families and safety advocates pushed for the federal requirement of speed limiters, automatic emergency braking becoming standard equipment on all new trucks, and stronger guards being installed for the prevention of smaller vehicles from sliding underneath large trucks in a collision. The European Union, as well as other areas around the globe, already require these kinds of safety regulations for new trucks, but the United States has yet to make such mandates, according to the letter.

“During the past four years, the U.S. The Department of Transportation has not advanced a single major safety regulation,” said the letter. “Instead, government officials have relentlessly attacked existing truck safety rules with efforts to increase the work hours of truckers and to allow teen truckers to operate in interstate commerce.”

The safety advocates urged Biden to choose new leaders without any corporate influence or industry ties who are able to provide leadership within the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and the NHTSA.

“We cannot wait and allow another 20,000 truck crash deaths and 600,000 injuries in the next four years when solutions are already at hand,” the letter continued.

As of now, former Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg has appeared before senators in consideration for his nomination for transportation secretary as Biden’s pick. Once confirmed, one of Buttigieg’s deputies will be Massachusetts secretary of transportation, Stephanie Pollack. Pollack is also set to lead the Federal Highway Administration.

Biden has already named his NHTSA and FMCSA deputy administrators, but hasn’t chosen other top job candidates.

“We need somebody who wants to be a regulator,” said former president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, Jackie Gillan. “What you need are standards and enforcement, and both of these are missing right now.”

In September, a study was released suggesting that safety features such as forward collision warnings and automatic emergency braking become commonplace in an effort to improve overall roadway safety. Auto insurers supporting the claim, and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety report noted that these safety features would be able to prevent at least 40 percent of rear-end crashes instigated by large trucks.

According to the research, these kinds of systems slowed vehicle speeds by more than 50 percent when these rear end crashes occurred, decreasing injuries and vehicle damage.

NHTSA granted a safety advocate petition requiring braking systems to be implemented into large trucks in 2015, but the agency has yet to move forward with this proposal.

Adding in automated safety features and calling out government neglect in regards to truck safety regulations are the keys to bettering American roadway safety, an idea made clear in Representative Seth Moulton’s recent National Transportation Safety Board report. The Report detailed a 2019 New Hampshire truck crash that killed seven motorcyclists and clearly showed the lack of government oversight in regards to truck safety conditions.

“Trucking companies that choose to break the law can do so without fearing consequences unless there’s a tragedy,” said Moulton.

Claybrook agreed, mentioning an investigative series by the Boston Globe that pointed out the loopholes and caveats within the government’s current trucking regulation system. The series found that one in five of American commercial trucks is in such poor condition that it would immediately be removed from service if properly investigated by safety inspectors.

“It brought to light what a lot of people just don’t know,” said Claybrook. “They don’t know [or] understand that they’re dealing with rolling time bombs on the highway.”

New Data Show Increase in Big-Rig Occupant Deaths

January 16, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

The National Highway Traffic Safety Association has released information on its data collected from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System in 2019. According to the data, the number of big-rig occupants who died in traffic crashes rose in 2019, although overall traffic fatalities declined.

The reporting system, FARS, releases vehicle traffic crash fatal injury data each year to Congress and to the public. The National Center for Statistics and Analysis associate administrator for NHTSA, Choi-Lin Chen, said that the administration’s full analytic report would be made public by the end of 2020.

According to the preview data, there has in fact been a decline in overall traffic fatalities by person, but there was still a 0.2% uptick in truck occupant deaths in all large-truck-related fatalities. There were two more big-rig occupant deaths in 2019 than 2018, even though overall truck crash deaths decreased.

The big rigs in question include both commercial and noncommercial trucks weighing in at over 10,000 pounds.

“The data provided by FARS does not distinguish between commercial and privately-owned trucks, so it is important not to draw conclusions regarding [commercial motor vehicle] crashes,” said a spokesman for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. “The agency continues to implement important safety initiatives, like the final rule updating the hours-of-service regulations, important research into new assisted technologies for drivers to improve safety, and the implementation of FMCSA’s Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse.”

2019 saw 36,096 fatalities in traffic crashes, a 2% decrease from 2018’s 36,835. This rate of decline was also seen between 2017 and 2018. Additionally, the number of overall vehicle miles traveled in 2019 rose by almost 1% between 2018 and 2019, while traffic deaths still declined. For 2019, the estimated fatality rate was around 1.10 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, as compared to 2018’s rate of 1.14 fatalities for the same number.

“Fatalities decreased by 2%, which continues the encouraging three-year downward trend,” said James Owens, NHTSA Deputy Administrator. “That’s very encouraging news.”

NHTSA has also released estimates for traffic crash deaths for the first half of 2020, and stated that the country saw an overall decrease in traffic-related fatalities for the second quarter of the year when stay-at-home orders were implemented. According to FARS data, around 8,870 died in vehicle crashes during the second quarter of the year, down 3.3% from the number of recorded deaths during the same quarter in 2019.

Additionally, estimates show that overall traffic volumes dropped by at least 16% in the first half of 2020, although traffic numbers fell more than the number of fatal crashes. Therefore, the traffic death rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled during the first six months of the year is estimated to increase to 1.25, up from 2019’s 1.06 from the same period.

Throughout the stretch of the pandemic in 2020, researches saw some major changes in driver behaviors as well, according to companion data released by NHTSA. For example, drivers who did happen to drive at the peak of stay-at-home orders drove with much more recklessness–engaging in dangerous behaviors like failing to wear a seat belt, speeding, or driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, according to the companion study. Average driving speeds also increased in the second quarter of the year, and fewer people were wearing their seat belts in the event of a crash.

In the second study, data found that nearly two-thirds of drivers involved in serious or fatal traffic crashes between March and July tested positive for at least one active drug.

The number of drivers testing positive for opioids almost doubled after mid-March–the beginning of the pandemic’s effects in America–in comparison to drug levels detected during the six months prior.

“Road safety is always our top priority, and while we are encouraged by today’s reports showing a continued decline in total fatalities in 2019 and into the first half of 2020, we are concerned by the trend since April showing an increased fatality rate,” said Owens. “Now, more than ever, we should be watching ourselves for safe-driving practices and encouraging others to do the same. It’s irresponsible and illegal to drive under the influence of drugs or alcohol–taking risks not only with one’s own life, but with the lives of others.”

NHTSA is meeting with government representatives during the last couple months of the year to find ways to develop and implement countermeasures in order to boost safety efforts.

Still, Owens said these kinds of backwards, dangerous trends are extremely surprising.

“We’ve never seen trends like this,” he said. “We feel an urgency to work with our stakeholders to take action and turn this around. We faced some unprecedented challenges this year, including in traffic safety.”

America’s Truck Drivers Can’t Stay Home

April 30, 2020 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

When we think about the people in our communities who definitely can’t work from home, we most often think of emergency room doctors and nurses, and rightly so. However, there are many workers on the front lines in the fight against the spread of COVID-19 who may not be top of mind for most people, yet their contributions are vital to allowing people to get food and supplies in this critical time.

Whether you’re buying your food and essentials from a store or getting them delivered, those items most certainly spent part of their journey to your home on a truck driven by one of the over 3 million professional truck drivers in the United States. Since most the country is under some form of quarantine order or another, food, essentials, and medical supplies are nearly entirely moved only by professional drivers.

Some drivers regularly travel thousands of miles as part of a supply chain that keeps grocery store shelves fully stocked. If a driver were to get sick far from home at a time when there is no guarantee of testing, they may be left with few options and they even might get stranded. With so many businesses closed, many drivers will rely on truck stops and travel centers for rest, fuel, essentials, and supplies. In Some cases, these facilities may be the only ones available for drivers who are far from home.

The National Association of Truck Stop Operators (NATSO), a trade association based in Washington D.C. that represents the truck stop industry keeps a directory of stops and travel centers on their website to make it easier for drivers to locate facilities near them.

What if a driver gets sick?

Each trucking company is likely to have a different set of policies for its employees. In March, new Federal legislation was signed into law, called the Families First Coronavirus Response Act. The law requires employers with less than 500 workers to provide additional paid sick leave to their employees. Some of the provisions that require employers to provide additional paid leave to an employee situations where an employee has been advised by a health care provider to self-quarantine, or to someone is experiencing COVID-19 symptoms and is seeking diagnosis. There are also provisions requiring higher compensation rates for some employees. However, there are exceptions to these rules given to some smaller businesses whose viability would be jeopardized by enacting these provisions. These new rules are set to expire at the end of 2020.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued some guidelines to help delivery drivers stay safe while working. Some of these tips can also apply to long-haul truckers. Additionally, truck drivers should be diligent about taking all the precautions they can to prevent the spread of this virus.

You’re probably tired of hearing this, but wash your hands:

Hand sanitizer may be helpful to have in a bind. However, it doesn’t substitute for washing your hands with soap and water for at least 30 seconds. This may seem like overkill, but you should wash your hands every time you get fuel, use the washroom, or before you eat. Just think about how many people touch a fuel pump or use the bathroom every day. In fact, try to avoid things that multiple people come into contact with, like buffet style dining facilities or public computers.

Finally, if a driver does get sick – stop working. You should contact your company’s safety department as soon as you feel ill. Not only are you risking getting someone else sick if you keep working, but it’s also unsafe to operate a rig if you’re sick or fatigued.

Airman Introduces Automated Landing Gear System

April 20, 2020 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

At the recent 2020 American Trucking Associations Technology and Maintenance Council Annual Meeting in Atlanta, Airman Products unveiled its new Automated Landing Gear Deployment and Retraction Technology.

The company’s patent-pending device allows drivers to limit their exposure to potential injuries–such as knee and back damage–by eliminating manual cranking needs for raising and lowering the landing gear of a truck, and replacing it with the flip of a switch.

“What we’re bringing to the fleets is a faster solution that requires significantly less effort out of the driver,” said vice president of Airman sales, Jim Babbitt.

The electrically-driven unit can be OEM-installed in under an hour, works easily with all existing landing gear makes and models, and only weighs 15 pounds. A driver can deploy and retract landing gear much more quickly with the new technology than he or she could manually.

When drivers work with the manual system and sustain injuries, they often end up missing work for months–which can even cost them their jobs.

“You do this tens of thousands of times over a lifetime of being a truck driver, and that’s going to cause problems,” said Shane LaHousse, Airman vice president of engineering. “Automation is the way to eliminate this problem”

Repetitive cranking motion can also because heavy wear on muscles and joints, especially in aging drivers, which is a growing issue as the median truck driver age continues to rise.

“Depending on the equipment and circumstances, it can take between 50 to 60 crank arm rotations to get the legs on a trailer’s landing gear at the ground, and this task can keep some otherwise great drivers from working or coming back to work,” LaHousse explained. “Operating the crank arm can be awkward and physically taxing, even if the driver is young and uses the proper technique for landing gear operation, so we’ve taken this task out of the driver equation by automating it.”

Babbitt assures that this is a major solution.

“The fleets we’ve surveyed tell us that shoulder, back, and rotator cuff injuries are at the top of their list for workers’ comp claims, and that cranking landing gear up and down can cause or exacerbate these injuries,” said Babbitt. “Truck driving is already a physically demanding profession, so our automated system focuses on one primary stressor–making trailer drops and hookup operations safer and faster, while improving the truck driver experience and, as a result, driver retention.”

According to LaHouse, the Automated Landing Gear Deployment and Retraction system also increases lot utilization by allowing trailers to park closer together. This is made possible because the controller is mounted directly under the trailer apron and there is no longer a need to be able to reach a crank arm.

Babbitt said installing the system is simple–it arrives in kit form with all mounting hardware included. It only needs two bolts on the landing gear crossbar removed, the Airman landing gear actuator attached, and then the crossbar reinstalled.

The interface also only needs a 12-volt power supply, and the unit’s control box mounts easily under the trailer. Its two-way toggle switch sits on the side of the trailer frame rail and is easily accessible.

There is no maintenance required once installed, besides periodic battery replacement as needed. The company’s landing gear actuator is self-contained and does not need any lubrication.

“Some landing gear manufacturers offer automated systems now, but they are expensive, upgrading requires discarding an existing drive leg, and if the landing gear is damaged, may require complete replacement,” said Babbitt. “Not only is the Airman system about half the cost of other systems, it also works universally with all existing landing gear makes and models, and doesn’t have to be replaced if the landing gear is damaged.”

Airman also asserts that fleets with multiple trailer brands using various types of landing gear are now able to use one piece of equipment and one single source overall. Thus, whether a fleet orders the Airman Automated Landing Gear Deployment and Retraction Technology on new trailers, retrofits older trailers, or utilizes both options, it can still increase its parts inventory by just one SKU.

As of now, implementing the new automated landing gear system–which is expected to enter production in the third quarter–will only cost fleets about $700 per unit.

Additionally, it will come with a standard five-year warranty, or a seven-year warranty with a fleet agreement.

2020 International Roadchecks Have Been Set for May Fifth Through the Seventh

February 18, 2020 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) an organization that includes both local and national government officials in North America, as well as industry representatives, will be conducting its International Roadcheck this year on May 5-7. The Roadcheck is an initiative meant to focus attention on the importance of commercial vehicle safety through a 72 hour marathon of roadside vehicle inspections throughout North America.

Inspectors will be checking both vehicles and drivers. They will conduct driver interviews, review documents, and check their records and inspection reports. Inspectors will also be looking for signs that a driver may be ill or fatigued, and whether the driver displays any signs of drug or alcohol abuse.

The inspectors will also conduct vehicle inspections to make sure drivers are operating a properly maintained rig. CVSA inspectors will be placing decals on vehicles on which no critical violations are found during their Level I or Level V inspections. However, inspections that do reveal critical violations may be rendered out of service until any violations are corrected.

Some drivers or motor carriers may decide they want to sit out the inspections all together. If you stay off the road in early May there is less of a chance of having to go through an inspection. However, not driving to avoid getting checked is not only unsafe it is also a bad business move.

If you’re not driving, you’re not earning. The purpose of running any efficient transportation business is to make a profit. With plenty of time and a warning of upcoming inspection dates, drivers and motor carriers can prepare to make sure all their logs, records, licenses, certifications, and vehicles are in proper order. A vehicle that doesn’t pass and is put out of commission cannot produce an income. A vehicle that has violations but is hidden from inspectors creates a great safety risk to professional drivers and to the public who use the roads. When a crash happens, you can be certain that there will be law enforcement, government officials, and lawyers scrutinizing over records and conducting inspections to find violations. In these situations, the risk of being put completely out of business is a real consequence that motor carriers can face. Even if the majority of a given company’s fleet is violation free, the part that is not can result in a shutdown.

Chances are that everything we see around us from goods, food, to furniture got to where it is at least in part by a truck. Commercial motor carriers are operating in a business that holds definite risks to public safety and property damage when people do not follow safety rules. If motor carriers or drivers do not follow safety rules and a crash occurs, government inspectors can cause the whole operation to be shut down. Crashes can also lead to insurance rates skyrocketing, making it too expensive to keep the business running.

Public safety is not the only concern when it comes to operating a commercial trucking company. IF a driver gets hurt as the result of an unsafe truck the company that driver works for can incur costs for worker’s compensation and will be short a driver. Additionally, vehicles are expensive. It costs money to fix or replace a damaged truck. Taken as a whole, it will certainly be less expensive to properly maintain a fleet of vehicles and follow all the proper safety rules rather than to cut corners. It’s much less expensive to stay safe than to recoup after a crash. Of course, your life and health are priceless.

FMCSA Prioritizes Reducing Fatal Crashes in 2020; Asks for Public Comment

February 16, 2020 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

2020 is the year the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is calling for a major turn around regarding trucking fatalities that have occurred over the last four years.

Administrator Jim Mullen is urging the agency to find ways to solve this issue as soon as possible. On January 14th, the FMCSA issued a public comment request on the best way to go about studying key factors in large-truck crashes.

The Large Truck Crash Causal Factors Study will replace the agency’s current 15-year-old crash causation study, which it has been using to make policy decisions.

“When I assumed this role as acting administrator three months ago,” said Mullen at the Transportation Research Board’s January meeting, “the members of this panel asked me what are my top priorities. That to me was a no-brainer. The top priority for me at this agency is to reverse that four-year trend increasing fatalities involved with large trucks and buses.”

The agency’s information request will look toward bringing about new ways to take into account data sources, samples, ranges of crash types, and cost efficiency. It also notes that the new study needs to address onboard electronic systems and how they gather data about lane departure, speeding, and braking.

The study will also work to bring through new information that will help the industry discover which activities will bring large reductions in crash rates involving commercial motor vehicles.

“In the more than 15 years since the original study, many changes in technology, vehicle safety, driver behavior and roadway design have occurred that affect how a driver performs,” said the pre-publication announcement. “Since the study ended in 2003, fatal crashes involving large trucks decreased until 2009, when they hit their lowest point in recent years (2,893 fatal crashes). Since 2009, fatal crashes involving large trucks have steadily increased to 4,415 fatal crashes in 2018, a 52.6% increase when compared to 2009. Over the last three years (2016-2018), fatal crashes involving large trucks increased 5.7%.”

FMCSA will be accepting public comments on the request for 60 days after the January 15th publication.

In a “commercial motor vehicle safety landscape” briefing at the meeting, FMCSA’s chief safety officer, Jack Van Steenburg explained that the biggest driver-related factors in fatal truck crashes were distraction, speeding, and failure to yield right-of way.

“The first goal is to stop that upward trend,” Van Steenburg said. “For the next several months, we at FMCSA are going to go out and talk with people. We’re going to listen to people. We want to tell them what we’re doing, ask how we can do it better, what we can do differently, and how we can do it differently to prevent these crashes from occurring.”

Van Steenburg also assured that agency leaders would be in talks with state officials, especially those in states that have seen a decline in these crashes.

“We always show you the top 10 states that have had crashes,” he explained. “But in Pennsylvania, we saw a 22% decrease in fatalities; Georgia, 16%; California, an 8% reduction.”

Another method of bettering the study will be integrating crash datasets with additional information sources in order to begin “completing the picture of crashes,” according to Bill Bannister, the chief of FMCSA’s Analysis Division.

“This will allow us to drill down into the types of circumstances surrounding crashes, the differences among the types of crashes, and whether it’s the vehicles involved or the roadway that’s involved. This sort of information might provide predictors of crashes.”

National Transportation Safety Board project manager Ryan Smith, also outlined the challenges in finding useful data regarding marijuana-using drivers. According to Smith, researchers warn against understanding drug impairment by using the federal Fatality Analysis Reporting System. He says that although those using marijuana could fail a drug test, there is data showing they may not actually be impaired to drive safely.

There is a lot of data out there that is not properly being discussed,” said Smith. “The concern is that people are using data improperly and coming up with these conclusions that are not in journals but are in news reports. Some of the findings are being twisted and can actually be doing more harm.”

Additionally, Joe DeLorenzo, administrator for FMCSA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance, said the agency is currently working on updating its Compliance, Safety, Accountability Program’s safety measurement system. It will use a complex method called “Item Response Theory” to further analyze data. However, he says the system is still not understood by many in the industry.

An evaluation of the IRT model is not expected until later this year.