Horrible crash in Lakewood CO, I70 closed both directions. 12 vehicles 4 semi huge fire

I dont believe that the requirement to be able to read and speak English is required any more... I had heard that that requirement was done away with because it was "discriminatory"

 

I know a lot of people been doing this job since their 20s, I'm one of them, and none of us have screwed up this bad. He's here legally so nationality don't mean squat to me and shouldn't to anybody else.

 

I am avoiding the nationality. Frankly i could care less. Im just more upset that he has had all these gifts towards stopping, did nothing all the way down and then into town. Boom dead people. To me that's braindead. Lack of training. Hang him high I say. enough is enough.

If it is necessary for the people to rise up with enough civil suits to vaporize the motor carriers that failed to invest in the training before sending these pups to what I consider to be upper graduate mountain courses in trucking... They should cease to exist, the assets sold off and divided among the bereaved.

I generally don't think much of training these days, but the way I was trained was very good and I make the mistake of expecting the same from our children today. The spouse did not have any fear of mountains at all, if anything it's NW nevada below Fallon near Walker Lake where there is a couple hundred miles of nothing. THAT is the one thing that got to her. Precision driving 2 inches from a three foot edge towards Armarillo during construction was another. She was forced into a form of precise attention and steering that was almost beyond her ability. I usually took the truck through when she got too upset. (And I don't blame her..) she also hates walls. No problem when I am close to the wall with her in it, but she cannot hardly stand them.

In short it's a need to find the trainees strong and weakpoints and then work on the bad to minimize the risk of accidents and loss of life in the future. Secondly companies discard trainees like trash within 90 days or a year even when they rub a dock post too hard. That has to stop. They need to be trained to slow down, breathe in a tight dock situation and take a moment to get around that pesky no post. Stupid engineers always putting stuff down where we need to go... (Abstract attitude.. a form of humor, bear with me.)

 

I was thinking about this again today, about what will likely happen to him legally. I don't expect too stiff a sentence, certainly not life. Maybe 10 years, 20 at the most. Colorado couldn't even give out the death penalty to the loser who killed 12 and wounded another 70 at the Batman movie, so as a practical matter there is no death penalty here. ("But he's nuts! You can't give him the death penalty!" Of course he's nuts or he wouldn't have gone into a theater and shot it up. That doesn't mean he didn't know it was wrong, and it doesn't mean he shouldn't be put to death by the state.)

Some think, oh, he's suffering enough already, feeling bad that he killed four people and injured a bunch more and destroyed millions of dollars of property. This driver's feelings are not the point. The point is that he was obviously negligent (at best) and killed and injured and destroyed. If we don't punish that, then there's no reason for anyone else to care enough to avoid doing the same thing or worse. Jefferson County is generally more conservative than Arapahoe County, so if it goes to trial, maybe there will be a stiffer sentence, and if there's a plea deal, maybe it will result in something more than a slap on the wrist. I know a lot of people will be watching this. And hopefully the civil suits will completely bankrupt whatever company he was driving for and put a big hurt on their insurance company as well. That's going to be the only motivator for real change, I think.

 

I did read the comments from the initial news story in this thread and apparently we are not as well thought of as had been believed...lol

 

nevermind, not sure

 

Whatever made you think we were well thought of in the general publics eyes today??
I have been doing this from the 70's and I do not think so much of what the profession has evolved to myself.
Try these two things. Sit and watch a fuel island for 30 minutes of any busy truck stop.
Sit at the coffee counter a few times and listen to the BS, hopefully you know the BS stories from anything possibly real.

If after doing just these two things, ask yourself just how proud you are of being part of this goat rope.lol

Not to mention just generally people watching around a truck stop, the way lots of drivers dress, a guy would think he was in wallmart. lol

 

I've said it before and will continue to say it. It's way too easy to get a Class A. Wasn't it a couple of days ago that a student was complaining on here that the Community college he was attending had him loading tires instead of driving?

 

Whatever made you think I meant today?
This is my 45th year out here and I'll tell you for a fact that at one time we were considered heros of the highway, jeez even freight haulers wore ties.

 

You don't for non commercial license but I can't find the specific rule for FMCSA CDL.