truck crashes

As COVID-19 Brings Clearer Roadways, Vehicle Fatality Numbers Still Climb

July 7, 2020 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

Although many states throughout the nation have been abiding by stay-at-home orders during this time off pandemic–which has created clearer roads and lighter traffic in most areas–the National Safety Council has reported that the overall number of vehicle-related fatalities per miles driven has risen 14% in comparison to the same time frame in 2019.

This March, the number of motor vehicle deaths dropped by 8% compared to March of last year, while the number of miles driven declined by 19%. Still, the number of vehicle-related fatalities has increased, which the National Safety Council analyzed by taking into account deaths of anyone involved in motor vehicle-related accidents–drivers, passengers, cyclists, and pedestrians.

Additionally, the mileage death rate per 100 miles travelled was 1.22 in March 2020 versus 1.07 in March of 2019. Illinois is one of the states with the largest increases in roadway deaths for the first few months of 2020, with an 11% overall increase. Others include Connecticut at 42%, New York at 17%, and Arkansas at 16%.

“Disturbingly, we have open lanes of traffic and an apparent open season on reckless driving,” said president and CEO of NSC, Lorraine M. Martin. “Right now, in the midst of a global pandemic and crisis, we should take it as our civic duty to drive safely. If we won’t do it for ourselves, we should do it for our first responders, our law enforcement, and our healthcare workers, who are rightly focused on coronavirus patients and should not be overwhelmed by preventable car crashes.”

This new data comes as a result of drivers behaving much more recklessly on the roads with the lack of traffic during the pandemic, and regional officials have been reporting upticks in local car crashes in many areas across the nation.

“What really strikes me is the incredible speed of the changes we’re seeing on roadways,” said manager of statistics at the NSC, Ken Kolosh. “Looking at other recessions, what you usually see is a decrease in the number of deaths, or the injuries and fatality rate holding steady or decreasing slightly.”

Kolosh explained that the changes in vehicle-related deaths have been unprecedented and unexpected.

“When we see the combination of both a dramatic decrease in the number of total deaths coupled with a dramatic increase in the fatality rate on our roads, that was very surprising,” he said.

The NSC also says there will need to be more analysis of the death rate increase to determine all factors that must be considered.

“Anecdotal reports indicate speeding, for example, has increased significantly since traffic diminished,” said the organization on its website. “Some states are also moving forward with ill-advised roadway tactics intended to address the COVID-19 pandemic but that could have far-reaching consequences.” Some of these consequences that the NSC listed are relaxing hours-of-service rules for commercial vehicle drivers and repealing requirements for young drivers to pass road tests before obtaining their driver’s licenses.

Additionally, the NSC explains that the 2% increase in roadway deaths in the first three months of 2020, as compared to the same time frame last year, reverses positive changes in death rates between 2018 and 2019. NSC estimates showed that after 40,000 roadway deaths over three consecutive years, fatalities finally plateaued in 2018 and dropped lower in 2019.

To keep drivers as safe as possible during this time, the NSC has some guidelines for all motorists:

-Obey speed limits, even when roads are clear.

-Practice defensive driving–stay buckled up, avoid driving while fatigued, avoid distractions, and always designate a sober driver or utilize alternative methods of transportation when needed.

-Stay off the roads when officials require you to do so–many states have asked drivers to only drive for essential errands or emergency situations.

-Stay aware of pedestrians and bicyclists, especially as many more travelers use walking and biking to safely leave their homes during shelter-in-place orders. Pedestrians and bikers should also keep in mind that clearer roadways does not mean there will be no traffic at all times, and should stay alert when crossing streets.

-For parents and guardians, stay engaged with your teen drivers’ habits and skills and continue to practice driving with them frequently.

-Companies and organizations should consider joining the Road to Zero Coalition, which aims to eliminate all roadway deaths by 2050.

America’s Truck Drivers Can’t Stay Home

April 30, 2020 by Danylo Terleckyj 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.

No Need to ‘Hoard’ Groceries Amid COVID-19 Concerns Say Experts – Supply Chain Intact

March 31, 2020 by Danylo Terleckyj Leave a Comment

Efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19 have put a strain on the transpiration industry charged with getting food and supplies from point A to point B. Many stores quickly ran out of toilet paper when news of confirmed infections began breaking in the United States.

Seeing empty store shelves in a country where we often encounter abundance can seem ominous. People are facing a lot of uncertainty surrounding this pandemic. Many people are out of work and have had to apply for unemployment. Businesses are shut down and there are certainly some that may not recover. This whole situation has the potential of changing our realities, possibly even permanently.

Fear of the unknown is likely what sent people rushing to their local convenience and grocery stores to buy more toilet paper and paper towels than they will likely use in a year. There was a run on food as well. Grocery aisles emptied out quickly even before the Governor here in Illinois told everyone to stay home. Items with a long shelf life, like rice and pasta went first, along with the inventory of most of your local meat departments. However, it wasn’t long after that stock started to replenish at most stores. The main reason for this is the hard work of our nations professional truck drivers. Thankfully, food production hasn’t stopped, and stores are continuing to receive their shipments of supplies.

After the Governor of Illinois announced the shelter-in-place order, he deemed certain facilities and the people employed by them as “essential,” stating that such would remain open and continue to work. Not only did this category include hospitals and pharmacies, but also restaurants and grocery stores. As a result, professional truck drivers continue to work to deliver supplies to grocery stores and restaurants so that people can get what they need. Additionally, in order to stop others from “hoarding” specific items such as hand sanitizer, soap, toilet paper, paper towels and the like, grocery stores have implemented policies which limit the amount customers may purchase.

Although there are less vehicles on the road due to the “stay-home” orders local governments have been issuing throughout the country during this pandemic, it is still important for truck drivers to be able to practice safe and careful driving when transporting essential goods. If anything, there are a much higher percentage of semi-trucks driving around trying to get supplies delivered to stores than ever before and the last thing that anyone would want to happen is for these trucks and the drivers to get into a crash and possibly be injured. We need truck drivers to be able to do their jobs. However, they need to be able to do so while still following safety rules, including limits on the hours they remain on duty and still meet the needs and demands of each community. Accordingly, government, as well as private trucking companies, must provide truck drivers the ability to get enough rest and not be overworked in order to avoid driving while fatigued. This would ensure the safety of drivers, both truck drivers and other drivers on the road, as well as the arrival of the cargo professional truck drivers are carrying.

In uncertain times like these when some things may be out of our control, we still need to take all the measures we can to prevent crashes and injuries, not only to protect the supply chains that keep us fed, but to allow our hospitals and medical professionals the ability to focus on treating people suffering from this terrible virus.

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

February 18, 2020 by Danylo Terleckyj 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.

Lawsuit Against Amazon Points to New Challenges for Trucking Industry

February 11, 2020 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

A recent lawsuit filed against Amazon and AAA Freight is shedding light on what many throughout the industry have had growing concerns about; prioritizing shipping speed and cost savings for driver safety. In January of 2020, Timothy Weakley, a truck driver based out of Tennessee, claimed in a lawsuit against Amazon and AAA Freight, a trucking company who contracted with Amazon, that both companies were forcing the driver to work shifts that far exceeded the time allotted to drivers by federal law. Ultimately, these extended shifts resulted in Weakley falling asleep at the wheel. Additionally, Weakley claimed that both companies were working to falsify his driver logs in an effort to hide the drive time violations.

While the lawsuit is still in its infancy, and there appears to be many unanswered questions at this point, there is already one key takeaway from Weakley’s lawsuit that will likely have many asking questions about Amazon’s oversight and adherence to federal law. For instance, Weakley’s suit stated that Amazon was well aware of his drive time violations because of its “sophisticated freight tracking application” which was said to have tracked Weakley’s movement in the truck to the “millisecond 24/7.” If proven true, this could certainly result in a greater chance for Amazon being held liable for allowing Weakley to drive what he alleges was “20-30 hours or more with only an hour or two of rest.”

Without having an inside look into what the contract between both Amazon and AAA Freight looked like, we will have to wait and see how this lawsuit is handled in the future; however, one point remains clear; there is no doubt that as shipping speeds continue to enhance and volume rises, the trucking industry is being forced to adhere to increasingly high standards. Amazon is a billion-dollar company with a founder who just so happens to be the richest person in the world. The idea that a company with such power and influence could be asking its contractors to violate the federal law to meet its shipping standards, is not so far-fetched. On the other hand, even if some in the industry believe that Amazon has done nothing wrong and this lawsuit falls squarely on the shoulders of the contractor who actually employed Mr. Weakley, it’s not hard to imagine that a contractor wouldn’t be willing to push their employees to the limit to adhere to what we can only imagine is a lucrative shipping contract with Amazon. At a time when the trucking industry has once again been deemed to be struggling, would a trucking company really be willing to do something that could result in a deterioration of its relationship with one of the most powerful companies in the world?

Aside from focusing on whether Amazon could actually be held liable in this lawsuit, we must also remember that if the allegations that Mr. Weakley brought forth are proven true, this presents a major setback to any argument that federal drive time regulations are too strict and should become more flexible. Based on the proposed hours of service changes, truck drivers would be given more flexibility in dividing the required time they must spend in the sleeper berth of their trucks. We have written countless times about the effects of such a change, and this lawsuit only goes to show that such a change would likely result in further incidents where trucking companies are pushing their drivers to the limit.

More importantly, lawsuits such as this one must become a warning sign for drivers on the road. The reality is that while Amazon may be great for offering the best shipping speeds and price that money can buy, they have a well-documented history of failing to provide adequate safety standards for their employees, including truck drivers. If the allegations that Mr. Weakley brought forth are true, this means that the truck driver next to you could possibly have been driving for more than 20 hours on the road. Imagine working for more than 20 hours in one day. Now imagine your work involving being responsible for a truck that weighs over 40,000 pounds and having to drive it safely. That is serious cause for concern. So, while many may see this lawsuit and may immediately jump to the conclusion that the independent contractor, AAA Freight, is clearly responsible for the employee’s truck crash, just try and think a bit more about what it means to have one of the most powerful companies in the world writing a check for your business.

Number of Traffic Fatalities Down in 2019

January 28, 2020 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

With 2019 now in the rearview mirror, new data suggest the last year of the decade proved to be a positive one for drivers across the United States, as traffic fatalities saw a year-over-year decrease of 2.2% throughout the first 9 months of the year. According to Transport Topics, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimated there were 26,730 fatalities that occurred in 2019. While the statistics alone appear to be alarming, many should see this as a positive sign as it makes “the third quarter of 2019 the eighth consecutive quarter for year-over-year declines in traffic deaths since Q4 of 2017.”

Not only does this data establish that the United States has consistently been decreasing the number of traffic fatalities each year, but it proves that more drivers on the road and more miles being driven on average across the entire United States does not necessarily mean more fatalities will occur.

For instance, the Federal Highway Administration has also released data showing there has been a 1% increase in overall miles travelled by Americans in the first nine months of 2019, with an increase of 24 billion miles.

While this news is certainly positive and provides the nation with an idea of the direction in which certain initiatives are going, it’s important that we do not view such statistics in a vacuum.

To be sure, there has been a 2.2% decrease in traffic fatalities, but as is often the case, there is no silver bullet approach when it comes to trying to curb what can often feel like inevitable results.

According to the National Safety Council, a non-profit organization specializing in decreasing preventable deaths, the Road to Zero Coalition has been actively promoted. The Safety Council’s plan to eliminate all road deaths entirely serves as a guide for both state federal governments to adopt specific strategies to ultimately put an end to all traffic fatalities by 2050.

As highlighted in the report generated by the council, the strategies proposed are based on three “approaches” the coalition has found to be integral to succeeding in their initiative:

1. Doubling Down on What Works

Supporting policies that are based on research in roadway design and construction, vehicle engineering, law enforcement, consumer education, and trauma care.

2. Accelerating Advanced Technology

Establish new partnerships with manufacturers, technology companies, and EMS and trauma systems, as well as with public safety and health groups.

3. Prioritizing Safety

Adopting a “Safe System Approach” that prioritizes using proven safety methods which allow for individuals to make mistakes, yet such mistakes will not result in actual death.

In addition to establishing an overall guide for states to adopt, the council also holds “Road to Zero” webinars which serve as an introduction for new members joining the coalition to learn what other cities and states have already encountered in attempting to implement such strategies.

Although the task that the National Safety Council is trying to accomplish appears to be far larger in scope than what is realistically possible, such ambition has not gone unnoticed. Since its inception, the Road to Zero initiative has garnered roughly 900 members of the coalition. Among those members include the Federal Highway Administration, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. This is precisely what needs to occur across the United States for such lofty goals to be achieved.

It may seem unrealistic for us to be able to completely curb traffic fatalities when a 1% increase in the miles travelled across the country resulted in 24-billion-mile increase; however, when such a large number of companies and organizations are united behind these goals, there will be results.

Some may view the 2019 traffic fatality statistics as nothing more than a necessary update to the public to establish that the funding and donations being received are actually paying dividends. While that may be true to some extent, it is absolutely essential to remember that a silver bullet does not exist, and the efforts being put forth by such organizations as the National Safety Council are truly worth monitoring.

It could very well be the case that over the first few months of 2020 a spike in traffic fatalities occurs, but that should not mean we stop implementing these strategies in the future. Even without a silver bullet approach to decreasing traffic fatalities, our states, cities, and communities owe it to citizens to provide smart and convenient traffic routes and policies. Without implementing such policies, their failure to do so could render them accountable for future fatalities that were otherwise preventable.