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OPINION * USA - Fatigue … and death
“I don’t remember it happening because I fell asleep at the wheel, but when I woke up we were in an accident.” Candy Baldwin...
USA -Fleet Owner, by Skil Carr -August 12, 2008: -- ... as told to the Washington Post from her bed in Maryland Shock Trauma Center, following an accident on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge that left truck driver John Short dead... Let me give you this scenario. A young truck driver (let’s say 25 or 26, been driving for three years now) falls asleep at the wheel of his 80,000-pound rig and causes an accident, leaving a 57 year-old man dead – a man with a wife and kids... The trucker has no record; he’s a good kid, well liked by friends, co-workers, and family. His log book is clean, but he’d been at a friend’s wedding, stayed up most of the day and night, before going on duty at 3 a.m. Didn’t get a lot of sleep – in fact, didn’t sleep much at all, though he was off-duty for the required 10 hours... Car driver, just 19 years old: up all night at her mother’s wedding. Falls asleep at the wheel. Resulting accident leaves 57 year-old truck driver dead and traffic snarled for days. You know the accident I’m talking about, too... Now what happens? More importantly, what’s not going to happen? First of all, there’s no logbook to check. She’s not required to have one. No rule says she must have 10 hours off duty before getting behind the wheel. (Not that the 10-hour rule would’ve automatically made her well-rested and ready to drive – you can’t legislate good sleep, just the way you can’t legislate human behavior, though try as we might)... You also won’t see FMCSA visiting her anytime soon. You may remember the FMCSA’s exhaustive Large Truck Crash Causation Study published last year. Based on three years worth of study and a detailed examination of over 965 truck-car collisions, the feds found that car drivers caused 55% of those crashes. More importantly, however, they also discovered that on average car drivers we’re TWICE as likely to be fatigued as truck drivers... The study also found that human error was by far the leading cause of these crashes, ranked among the top eight factors for truckers and car drivers... (Picture: Sunset at the Cheasepeake Bay Bridge) Labels: opinions
posted by Unknown @ 12:10 PM
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