I80E between Laramie and Cheyenne

There's a catch 22 on the trainer sleeping - would you rather the trainer grab a couple of hours, or try to do 20-22 hours awake, supervising the trainee and then running his own shift, and STILL DRIVE? I tried the 22 hour thing when my wife first graduated school and started driving - she'd never driven, and I'd never slept in a moving truck... I was a total zombie for days and I was dangerous and worthless. Which is better?

That said, as far as the accident investigation (an area I've dealt with), you can come awfully close to determining speed of the "striking" vehicle and pretty close to the speed of the vehicle that was hit by calculating impact marks, time to stop, gross weight, trajectory, etc.

You don't need a "black box" (silly assumption) to calculate all of this, as it's been done with accuracy for many, many years, and long before ECMs recorded throttle/brake movements and engine rpms.

 

One of the articles I read said the FCC truck was traveling between 65 & 74 mph prior to impact.

What that article didn't say was how that info was obtained.

 

Otter, I agree with a lot of what you've said and you're correct that we shouldn't be judge and jury about this just because we read an article.

Just for the sake of being a devil's advocate, wouldn't you tend to believe that the inexperienced driver would have stated something other than being disoriented as he reportedly said if there was some sort of mechanical problem with the CRST truck?

There are very few people in this world who will immediately assume all fault at the drop of a hat. Even as good of a person as I try to be in owning up to my mistakes, you can bet your bottom dollar that if there was even the slightest thing wrong with my truck I would be putting 100% of the blame on the truck.

It's almost as if it's human nature to pass the buck.

Haven't you blamed it on the dog at least once in your life?

 

Sorry but when training the truck should be dispatched like a solo. What's with this gotta go gotta go mentality?

 

Worked for 3 companies as a trainer, and NO ONE dispatches like a solo..

 

I'd agree with ya if CRST wasn't a team driving company.

How much good would a rookie do if he'd never slept in a moving truck until he's out of his trainer's truck? Part of any trainers job is to insure that his/her trainee can do the job that'll be expected of them once said trainee is no longer in training.

You'll probably never agree with this, but that trainer was likely doing his job the way he was told to do it which is the way CRST wants it.

 

Learning to sleep in a moving vehicle is null and void if you can't drive, much like these two guys demonstrated. But yea your correct CRST is a team company but for a team company they sure do seem to have a lot of trucks sitting around at truckstops. For the first few weeks of a drivers career, an easy 4000 miles or so isn't going to hurt anyone. Then they can get the sleeping thing taken care of.

This guy obviously didn't have a good understanding of his machine and shouldn't have been left unsupervised.

 

To reiterate what otherhalf said, we have no idea what the trainee's driving was like prior to this event. For all we know he could have shown himself to be a "natural" and had never given the trainer any reason to believe he couldn't handle the truck without direct supervision.

 

This wasn't the guy's first week. For all we know, he successfully drove the first few weeks with the trainer sitting right next to his side the entire time. He had now moved into the second half of his training period where he was supposed to drive by himself. From the sounds of it, this was a relatively easy stretch of road; no steep hills, favorable driving conditions, lack of heavy/confusing city traffic. This would be the ideal place for a trainee to start his solo drive time.

 

Dang it Crow, you stole my thoughts again, only I was so long-winded you posted first.