The trucking industry takes bullets about safety every day without having to deal with media reports that just skim the surface
Justice,ILL,USA -The Trucker -28 Oct 2010: -- Sadly, there’s been another horrific fatal crash involving a tractor-trailer, and once again, the mainstream media is calling attention to the safety record of big rigs, in this case we feel with somewhat sensationalized information and quotes from an organization more than willing to jump on the industry’s driving record... Late Sunday about 11 p.m., a big rig owned by Globe Carrier of Justice, Ill., slammed into a line of seven vehicles stopped on Interstate 26 near Asheville, N.C.... In reporting the accident, both the Asheville Citizen-Times and The Associated Press noted that Globe Carrier had been cited for safety violations 21 times in the past 30 months... That is accurate, but what both media failed to report is that during that time period, 10 of those violations occurred during one inspection in Pennsylvania last January... What’s more, it failed to report that two of those violations were for regulations that no longer exist and five could easily have been “stacked,” according to a reliable commercial vehicle inspections source... On the Pennsylvania inspection report, there were three entries for an “inoperable required lamp,” which could and should easily have been lumped into one entry, the source said... In addition, the driver was cited twice for operating a CMV without periodic inspection, which meant that the driver wasn’t carrying the proper inspection papers on both the truck and trailer... The driver was also cited for no pre-trip inspection and not having a driver vehicle inspection report... Both of those requirements were wiped off the regulations 10 years ago, the source said... By the way, we checked the records of a major carrier with one of the best safety records in the industry, and during a one-week period in September, the company had 21 violations of FMCSA regulations, including bad brakes, logbook violations and bald tires... Oh yes, the company’s drivers had over 300 moving violations during the past 30 months... (Photo from The Asheville's Citizen Times, by Margaret Hester - A wreck on I-26 caused the closure of both lanes of traffic late Sunday evening, early Monday morning. Workers work to clear the I-26 East lane. 25 Oct 10)
* But do those violations make that company unsafe?
Justice,ILL,USA -The Trucker -28 Oct 2010: -- Just as the reported violations against Globe Carrier do not necessarily make that company unsafe... By the way, the accident probably has put Globe out of business... The company apparently had only one truck and trailer... There won’t be an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board, a spokesman there said... Don’t get us wrong... We were horrified and saddened upon hearing about the North Carolina accident...
That means since June 2009, 26 people have died in big rig accidents that involved five or more fatalities... That’s 26 more than have died in commercial aviation accidents... Two of those accidents involved trucks that plowed into the back of traffic stopped because of an accident... But as members of the media, we must dig deeper into the facts and report more than just surface numbers, which inflame the public and fire up the big rig wreck attorneys... And bring on fiery anti-trucking editorials such as the one that appeared in today’s Citizen-Times... The trucking industry takes bullets about safety every day without having to deal with media reports that just skim the surface... (Photo from Margaret Hester/Citizen Times: A wreck on I-26 caused the closure of both lanes of traffic late Sunday evening, early Monday morning. The wreck in the eastbound lane of I-26 involved multiple cars)Labels: trucks safety
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