Swift- How long without a wreck?>

I don’t see how this whole swift thing is that extreme. Don’t that have thousands and thousands of trucks on the road? When you have that many, of course there will be more pictures and videos of accidents. Kinda like the same thing as a white guy walking around Compton. No?

 

Trust me,it is that extreme when you see accidents like this:
Two Trucks From The Same Company Crash Within 100 Yards

This happened in October 2016 on I-64 in Institute,West Virginia. Not even CR England or Western Express are this bad.

 

Swift has had that account, Costco, since 1998, I think. They have been using, almost exclusively, triaxle reefers, quad axle vans, and 40-24 rocky mountains on it ever since.

Before Swift, Interstate, now part of Heartland, ran the same account with the same equipment only they also had reefers were in 40-24 sets with two axles on both the 40 and 24 for 9 axles total.



Yes, I know I don't have a picture of the 9 axle Interstate combination, but add a 4 axle truck and you get the idea. They had reefers in the same combination on these Costco runs too dating back to the late 1980s or early 1990s.

To get the Costco contract Swift came up with these:


You see the difference? The Swift pup only has one rear axle. Good idea right? Less axles = less dead weight. Right?

Well, in true Swift fashion, this was a desk jockey screwup of ultimate proportion. You see, when you disconnect the dolly from the loaded Swift pup of only 24', more often then not, the trailer noses over. Making it almost impossible to back the loaded pup into the dock; the trailer would nose over shortly after the dolly was removed and before you could get the truck under it. Swift's solution was to put a pintle on the back of the tractor and get drivers to back in the whole dolly pup assembly into the dock. Good luck training a Swift driver to back up a 53' trailer, let alone a 24' pup still attached to a dolly.

Correct, most Swift drivers on the NW heavy haul fleet cannot adjust tandems to save their lives. Many, not all, have no clue and never learn how to adjust tandems. It is one of the major selling point for those to stupid to do so.

Most of Swift NW heavy haul is Costco outbound. Costco has a computer program that specifies the loading of the trailer. 99 times out of 100, the Costco loading will be spot on with no adjustment for the 4 axle tractors. For the 1% that isn't, most of the time it leaves the Costco yard with a driver to0 dumb to know the difference, and late at night when the outbound scales are closed.

However, they run backhauls on most runs on that account. Usually it is trash or scrap paper, and loaded by idiots that have no clue. Sold by Swift office staff that claims their equipment can haul 68k with absolutely no instruction how to do so. Those backhauls collect tickets like mad for the the majority of Swift Heavy haul drivers. But, it is all good going outbound from Costco.

 

Oh, yeh almost forgot.
I am very familiar with where that accident happened, that run and am pretty sure I know the driver that caused it.

That truck was going from Sumner, WA to Warrington, OR Costco; about 160 mile run. So the guy fell asleep at about 1:00 on a four hour run. He was most likely sitting in the Sumner terminal all day until he took off.

The road where he wrecked curves right just there before approaching a stop sign at 101. He drove straight across a gravel parking lot and hit a 3'-4' gravel berm. That is right the berm is 3 almost 4 foot high. After hitting that 4' berm he cleared the next 3' berm, Oh about 20'-30' away.

Not quite this but not bad for loaded with trailer.

 

I wonder if the driver thought the berm was soft and felt he could bulldoze through if he gunned it. A GOAL would have told him otherwise.

 

Swift Transportation had 2256 reported"wrecks" with 657 injuries and 67 deaths in the 24 months prior to 12/2017. So that comes out to approximately just over one wreck every 8 hours. This is not including incidences on private property.

 

That was supposed to say in the 24 months prior to 12/2017. it' not letting e edit. my apologies

 

Fair enough, fella.

2260 incidents / 365 days in a year = 6.2 incidents per day.

6.2 incidents per day / 17814 drivers = .034% (over two years) likelihood that a reportable will happen to any given driver.

Adjusting for time-span of 2 years: .034%/2 = .017% per year.

Less than 1/10th of a percent chance during the year that Swift will kill you on the highway.

That noted, however, I'll remain wary.
But your math is good, my friend. Checks out.

An edit, out of curiosity, a different mathematical approach, one more..... striking.... because who wrecks (I'm being dramatic, but meticulous) 3 trucks a day and thinks 'that's cool':

365 days per year x 24 hours per day: 8760 hrs/yr. 2260 Swift reportables in 2 years.

8760 hrs/yr / 1130 (Swift reportables in one year) = 7.75 hours between crashes daily.

Your still wrecking 3.1 trucks per day. 6.2 driver's if it's a team operation.




Lies.
#### Lies.
And Statistics.

 

Here's a good one for U KT...could U explain how this U Turn is possible?