Acceptable loss ratio

I don't think automatics come into play. There isn't a specific type of accident that you would have in an automatic vs a standard.

 

Well the reason i say automatics, i have drove both and the auto are much slower on take offs, takes more patients and a driver will get more comfortable are to say to comfortable.

 

Well, with cameras being put in trucks..the truth will be on record. Ever seen a guy eat a burrito going 55 in a 65 and swerving all over the road. Yea, where's that statistic at. Truckers driving while eating burritos!

 

Well, as someone else pointed out here, business is all about the bottom line. Obviously no fatality is an acceptable loss, whether it is your own employee or another party. I didn't look at any of his videos, but I suppose his point is something to the tune of "as long as we are profitable some deaths are just a by product of the business we are in". I don't believe anyone's life is worth losing over trucking, but if you are as big as the carriers mentioned in your post some fatalities are pretty much guaranteed due to the overall exposure of running that many miles. Accidents happen and people die when they tangle with big trucks. When you get right down to it money aces everything else when it comes to large corporations and when you put it like that, none of these carriers voluntarily closed due to these fatalities. Apparently their business model allows for this amount of collateral damage in the pursuit of the overall goal, profits. There are carriers running out here with way worse fatality percentages per miles traveled than these.

In the end I guess it's just business. In big corporate culture profits are king. Not just with trucks. With all business. Consider this: General Motors knew long before they recalled the Cobalt that they had an switch design issue and it was killing people. It is now public knowledge that they had a meeting to discuss whether it would be cheaper to recall them, or to continue to pay settlements to the people that were already dead and the one's who would be killed in the future. Now to even have such a meeting weighing the merits of these two decisions is disgusting to even think about to me, but they did it. There's big business for you. Probably no different with big carriers. Is the cost of increased training more or less than keeping current practices and settling lawsuits? It's too bad but whichever one is less will win just about every time. Like they say, "that's business".

 

Everyone seems to enamored with the numbers and the statistics that FMCSA shows on their website. The numbers simply show the number of fatal accidents companies have been involved in, not the total number of people that actually died in each individual crash. It also doesn't show who was at fault. i.e. a van full of folks could slam into the back of a truck stopped at a light. Not the drivers fault, but 5 people killed. The Federal statics would show 1 fatal crash. If it's a small Co. with say 5 trucks the statics would show 20% of their vehicles have been involved in fatal crashes.

 

Would like to know where the op got his numbers from.As its seems that it so easy just to blame the truck driver.

 

You hit nail on the head. Out of those fatality crashes what was the percentage of the trucking companies fault 100%, 90%, 75%, 50%....ETC stats are nice but without the full picture it's little distorted.

 

Not just that but on tv as well. While waiting for a DOT physical the tv was on a local station, and EVERY SINGLE. Commercial break had these ambulance chasing vulture law firms.."got in a wreck with a truck?? Call us and get cash!!"... So much for keeping my blood pressure lower. Took everything I had not to hurl a chair through the TV screen.

 

^^ this


And the numbers are often under reported. For instance -- All those fedex ground crashes? they get charged to the DOT number of the subcontractor, not fed ex.


Finally, over 60% of highway fatalities happen to people not wearing a seatbelt. Those might as well be called suicides imo