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DEBATE * USA - Truckers' Fatigue
Trucking Industry Deregulation in Spotlight Again
UT,USA -The Ergoweb, by Jennifer Anderson -Dec 4, 2006: -- Federal rules designed to keep long-haul truck drivers in the United States awake and alert at the wheel, which were relaxed by an administration committed to deregulation, returned to the spotlight again on December 2 in an article published in the New York Times. In the debate before the changes were made, ideological arguments drowned out warnings about the risks... The warnings are well supported. Ergonomics research shows that fatigue increases the risk of accidents and decreases efficiency and productivity. The Times article was the first in a series about the impact of President George W. Bush’s deregulation strategy, which has repealed enforcement or completion of hundreds of federal rules... The research has led to ergonomic principles for designing workdays and shifts to minimize fatigue, and the May 2005 issue of The Ergonomics Report, noted that many employers put them to use. The description of trucking as the most treacherous industry suggests the business owners are more attracted to the ideology of deregulation than practices that minimize risks...
* USA - Trucking rules eased; safety debate grows - Part of Bush drive for business deregulation
Washington,DC,USA -The Wilmington Morning Star (Wilmington,NC)/New York Times News Service, by Stephen Labaton -5 Dec 2006: -- As Dorris Edwards slowed for traffic near Kingdom City, Mo., on her way home from a Thanksgiving trip in 2004, an 18-wheeler slammed into her Jeep Cherokee... The truck crushed her vehicle and shoved it down an embankment off Interstate 70. Edwards, 62, was killed... The truck driver, John L. McNeal, accepted blame for the accident, and Edwards' son, Steve Edwards, filed a lawsuit against the driver and the trucking company, Werner Enterprises of Omaha, Neb. Werner ultimately settled the lawsuit for $2.4 million... In the course of pursuing the case, Steve Edwards broached a larger issue: whether the Bush administration's decision to reject tighter industry regulation and instead reduce what officials viewed as cumbersome rules permitted a poorly trained trucker to stay behind the wheel, alone, instead of resting after a long day of driving... After intense lobbying by the trucking industry, regulators a year earlier had rejected proposals to tighten drivers' hours and instead did the opposite, relaxing the rules on how long truckers could be on the road... That allowed the driver who hit Dorris Edwards to work in the cab nearly 12 hours, eight of them driving nonstop, which he acknowledged had tired him...
posted by Unknown @ 9:58 AM
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