Chattanooga Times Free Press series

I am not a company drivers I am a lease with my new non lease truck arriving in February. Company or owner op does not give you a pass on the safety of the public.

 

I never asked for nor expect any pass on saftey. I've been at this for 16 years. I already have a million miles safe driving award on my wall. I have driven an ungoverned truck for the past 6 years and never gotten a speeding ticket in it. In fact the only one I did get was about 15 years ago as a rookie driving across Ohio when they had that wonderful split speed limit of 55 mph for trucks and 65 mph for cars.

 

I saw a 4 wheeler the other day on the I-285 loop in ATL..yacking into a cell phone and reading newspaper he had on his steering wheel and eating a bowl of cereal as he passed by me doing over the speed limit..

But the times free press will sell more newspapers by printing a article entitled "Danger on the highways"(Trucks)..

Times Free press is a rag paper i wouldn't line a bird cage with.....

 

That's awesome.. and thank you for being a safe driver. But it's the FedEx guy buzzing past at 70 in a snow storm or the guy weaving at 4am or texting while driving. How do we separate you from them if laws are not universal for the safety of all.

 

@Chattanooga Reporter read your article seems well researched and written. Prayers for those who lost loved ones .

A lot of problems come from the fact that there are no blue collar jobs. So a lot of people try truck driving because they have no choice. Most of these trainees have no business behind the wheel...

Paid training/ paid tourist ....not

 

That brings up a good point perhaps if this journalist had some time to kill. Reading the horror stories over the years in this very forum, the "Report a bad company" section. Newbie drivers go to these large companies like CR England, USXpress, Covenant, etc and get eat up spit out like no tomorrow. Trucking is a hard life. Turnover at these big outfits is a staggering 110%.

They will claim it is because of a shortage of drivers but the truth is it's because of low pay and poor working conditions. Compare the turnover of large Truckload carriers with large Less Than Truckload carriers and why is it LTL companies have turnover of around 10-20%? Because in large part they offer better pay and working conditions. Training for new drivers is an absolute joke - accidents waiting to happen. There are no regulations for even minimal driver training requirements. How crazy is that?

 

You cant regulate the human brain. I have had a person in a minivan hauling 4 kids cross into my lane (oncoming) becuse the driver was staring at a phone. A fact i could see as bright as day, luckly a little of the loud button and she moved back. But before she passed me she was looking down again. SMH. Everyday i can count at least 6 4 wheelers that pass me above ground speed, distracted by phones or books or whatever in the first 5 miles of my day. By sheer numbers there are more idiots per hundred in our industry then most. The LCD nature of megas sees to that. There are laws agaist drunk driving. Dont stop it, there are interlocks and revokations, dont stop it. For any AND all that think we can regulate out stupid i can only say good luck. All the rules in the world aint gonna help. Eorbs push tierd drivers who dont know how to plan (or are pressered by dispatch) to use all 11 hours of driving. Let me ask, what other job is there where the accepted norm to "survive" is working 30 to 40 hours of overtime a week with no OT pay? Hair tests? Thats funny right there, in case you didnt know stupid dont always use drugs. If you want to know the ONLY real way to fix or at least dimminish the risk ill tell you. FIX DRIVER PAY ISSUES! Thats it. Make it more lucritive to be safe then to be stupid. Jocks who use HGH's make a little more till there caught, but there clean counterparts will make more over a lifetime. I mean really it aint rocket science. Its truck driving

 

I would put a lot of the issues down to training.
When I started in 1987 I asked the owner how to do something, he just said "you'll find out". Later when I did something wrong and he asked me about it, all I said was "I'm finding it out".
Last year we get a new dispatching app for my smart phone. They just said, "download this and use it", how's it work?, " you'll figure it out".
In thirty years nothing has changed.
Most companies safety is an expense they put up with to keep the government and insurance companies at bay. If it was really important then the government would be the first to set an example. But for the government it's just an expense also, just ask all the people that fell into the river when the bridge in Minnesota collapsed.

 

I do put salt on my icy step. But what I don't do is expect the govt to pass another law about salting icy steps before I do it. I believe it is my responsibility to salt my icy step. Even If the govt tried to pass an icy step law, it'd be written by a senator from Miami who had never seen or salted an icy step.

 

I liked ur suggestions up until u gov trucks at 70....why? I mean if u want to gov the speeders then put Mandatory speed limiters on on cars vans suvs motorcycles too.