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May 13, 2016

HEIGHT WARNING for TRUCKS * New Zealand

* Auckland - Trucks to get bigger warnings at overbridges

--- Height sensor signs at the Penrose overbridge will soon be much harder to miss, New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) says... Part of Auckland's southern motorway was closed for hours on Monday afternoon after a driver hauling a heavy digger crashed into the overbridge at 1.20pm... The driver, who failed to stop as he approached the bridge just after 1pm, hit the bridge and caused the digger to topple... An NZTA spokesperson said sensors which flash a warning to drivers if the load is too tall went off yesterday, but the system was being upgraded to make it more visible... The upgrade to electronic signs about 300 metres before the bridge would be finished in the next three months, making them "even more difficult to miss", he said... Mr Gliddon said NZTA worked very closely with the freight industry to ensure its members were aware of the height requirements of the bridge and others on the network... 
(Photo: RNZ/ Tom Furley - Penrose overbridge was also struck by a truck in March)   --   Auckland, NZ - Radio NZ - 10 May 2016

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Oct 23, 2015

I) ROADS SAFETY ? * USA: Let teens drive trucks

* DC - Trucking companies are pushing Congress to weaken age limits for drivers

-- Trucking companies, struggling to attract enough drivers, may soon be able to put more teenagers behind the wheel... Under federal law, states can grant anyone over 18 a commercial drivers’ license, the main qualification to drive a truck. However, few drivers start that young because they need to be 21 to haul freight across state lines... Trucking executives say the age limit is making it hard to find enough drivers, with the most severe shortage in long-haul trucking, which typically requires drivers to cross state lines... Mr. Rob Abbott, of  the American Trucking Associations said, getting young people into trucking was near the top of the group’s list of priorities. Trucking companies need an additional 48,000 drivers to keep up with demand for freight transportation, the ATA said in a recent report, and many fleets have raised pay and other benefits aggressively over the last year to recruit drivers... Safety groups, including Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, oppose the proposal to lower age limits, which they say would make roads more dangerous because younger drivers are more likely to get into accidents. Many of these groups advocate for minimum ages to be raised for in-state trucking as well...
(PHOTO: BLOOMBERG NEWS - Trucking companies want Congress to make it easier for drivers as young as 18 to get behind the wheel) -- Washington, DC, USA - The WSJ, by ROBBIE WHELAN - Oct. 22, 2015

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II) ROADS SAFETY * USA: Senators slam 'deadly double' trucks

* DC - Senators pushes to stop federal measure allowing trucks to haul longer trailers

-- A bipartisan group of senators slammed a proposal to increase the length of twin-trailer trucks that are allowed on U.S. roads on Wednesday... Trucking groups are pushing Congress to increase a current limit of 28-foot trailers on trucks that carry two loads to rigs that are 33 feet long apiece in an upcoming highway funding bill... Trucking groups have said the so-called "twin 33" proposal would increase the amount of cargo that can be shipped in the U.S. on a single trip without requiring drivers to work extra hours... Critics have said the longer trucks would be unsafe, pointing to crashes such as the 2014 accident involving comedian Tracy Morgan... The senators who are protesting the proposal to increase truck lengths on Wednesday said they are basing their opposition on recommendations from federal highway regulators, who have been opposed to the proposal...
(Photo by Cameron Lancaster: Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.))  --  Washington, DC, USA - The Hill, by Keith Laing - 21 October 2015

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Sep 2, 2015

TRUCK SAFETY BATTLE USA: * The DRIVE Act - ** What really happens on the roads

* New York - The appalling rollback of truck safety provisions in the DRIVE Act
-- A battle is brewing over the Senate transportation bill’s approach to truck safety. Though large trucks are involved in crashes that kill nearly 4,000 people a year — a number that has grown by 17 percent over the past five years — the DRIVE Act actually rolls back what few protections exist... The bill would allow longer and heavier tractor-trailers... Also cut down on mandated rest periods for truckers, a long-simmering question. The Senate bill would allow truckers to work 82 hours a week with less rest... Perhaps most appalling, the DRIVE Act would let teenagers drive commercial trucks... The bill would allow 18-year-olds to drive commercial trucks, despite the elevated crash risk of teenage drivers... Safety groups and newspaper editorial pages are slamming these proposals as concessions to the trucking lobby that completely disregard public safety. Even a retired executive from the American Trucking Associations, an industry lobbying group, was recently moved to speak out against the changes, noting in the New York Times that while heavy trucks account for less than 10 percent of total miles traveled, they are involved in one in eight of all fatal crashes and about one-quarter of all fatal crashes in work zones... 
 (Cartoon from Host Madison)   --   New York, NY, USA - Street Blog, by Tanya Snyder - August 28, 2015


* New York - Underage, unlicensed truck driver reveals what really happens on the roads

 -- American Trucking Associations executive Howard Abramson recently made a case in the New York Times for higher safety standards for trucks. It’s not hard to understand why: Large trucks were involved in at least 327,000 traffic accidents in 2013, killing almost 4,000 and injuring 95,000... Size matters. According to the Utah Department of Transportation, “a fully loaded tractor-trailer weighing 80,000 pounds traveling under ideal conditions at a speed of 65 miles per hour will take 525 feet to stop (almost the length of two football fields)” ... Long hours are a constant point of contention between trucking companies (and owner-operators), who want to maximize profit, and regulators, who want to increase safety. In implementing a new policy in 2013, which reduced truckers’ maximum average work week from 82 hours a week to 70 hours, the U.S. Department of Transportation stated: “Working long daily and weekly hours on a continuing basis is associated with chronic fatigue, a high risk of crashes, and a number of serious chronic health conditions in drivers” ... I didn’t know a lot of drivers when I was on the road. But those I met seemed to take ridiculous hours for granted. Drivers are required to keep log books, which they show to police or state authorities at weigh stations, documenting their hours. But these were often exercises in narrative fiction. Drivers doctored the numbers or kept two sets of books. Meanwhile, to stay awake on long hauls, or through a series of them, amphetamines were a common resort, as was marijuana, often to take the edge off the amphetamines... I skipped that stuff, but I rarely drove without fatigue. Never a good sleeper, I worked all day, stayed awake riding shotgun during my boss’s time behind the wheel, then drove myself when he got tired and wanted to sleep. Since I’d never learned to drive properly, I only knew how to shift through the lower register and higher register of the truck’s 13 gears. The middle gears, roughly six through 10, remained a mystery. Rather than pull over, my boss vacated the driver’s seat, and I moved in, as we rolled down the highway at high speed. After that, fear of the destructive power of the rig, and a cherished music tape, kept me going through the night. It didn’t seem insane at the time... Truckers have family obligations, hobbies, money troubles, love affairs. There’s no way to guarantee that they’re getting sleep when they’re not on the job, or that they’re alert and paying attention when they are. The best we can hope is that drivers are mindful of the enormous responsibility they carry along with their freight. And it probably helps if they have a license...
(Photo: Truck stop)  --  New York, NY, USA - Bloomberg/Claims Journal, by Francis Wilkinson - August 31, 2015

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Apr 25, 2015

SAFETY ROADS * USA: Truckers want slower speeds on Texas highways

* Texas - Safety is the greatest priority in trucking. Some stretches highways have maximum posted speeds of 80 mph

--  Our companies and drivers make a living traveling the same roads that our loved ones share. I cannot think of a better reason to do more to reduce speed on our highways... New trucks have this capability, and nearly 70 percent of trucks on the road already have limits set well below 70 mph. In order to further improve highway safety for all of us... We know speed is already a leading factor in fatal crashes on Texas highways, causing 26,691 accidents resulting in 785 fatalities in 2013 alone — contributing to more than 23 percent of Texas fatalities and nearly 30 percent of the nation’s total... And of all the fatalities in Texas during the past five years, trucks were involved in about 14 percent and found at fault less than 4 percent of the time. That’s approximately 135 fatalities out of 3,377 Texas fatalities in 2013... As a bonus, we know slower speeds save fuel. Even as prices at the pump drop, we are all conscious of how much fuel we burn. A truck traveling at 65 mph burns 27 percent less fuel than one going 70 mph. According to one study, a truck’s fuel economy increases by more than a mile per gallon if its speed is cut by 10 mph. Trucks today, while burning much cleaner than the past, still only realize 5-7 miles per gallon... Studies show that the greater the difference in speed between vehicles, the more dangerous their encounters on the highway can be. This is one of the reasons law enforcement officers will stop a vehicle for going too slow on the interstate. When the speeds in which vehicles overtake each other are too far apart, the outcome can be very undesirable... Slowing down traffic simply saves lives. It saves fuel. It saves money in the form of reduced congestion, reduced accidents and insurance costs... It's time for the U.S. Department of Transportation to act... 
(RICK SCIBELLI GETTY IMAGES - Some stretches of highways in Texas have maximum posted speeds of 80 mph)   -- TXS, USA - The STAR-TELEGRAM, by JOHN D. ESPARZA - 22 April 2015

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Oct 24, 2014

STUDY: VEHICLE INSPECTIONS * USA: Statistics

* Virginia - ATRI study examines states with most and fewest inspections per million vehicle miles

(The Trucker file photo) Arlington,VA,USA -The Trucker News Services -22 Oct 2014: -- Professional truck drivers often complain about disparities among the states in terms of the severity of assessed violations as well as a lack of enforcement in some states... The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI), the American Trucking Associations’ not-for-profit research organization, Tuesday released a follow-up technical report to its previously released enforcement disparities study. 
The “Top 10” high-performing states include: 
1. Maryland 
2. Washington 
3. Nevada 
4. Rhode Island 
5. Montana 
6. Connecticut 
7. New Mexico 
8. California 
9. South Dakota 
10. Iowa

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Oct 7, 2014

SAFETY ROADS * USA: Commercial enforcement is different from regular traffic work

* Washington - Yakima inspectors seek to educate truckers, enforce laws


(Photo) 
Yakima,WASH,USA -The Yakima Herald-Republic, by Donald W. Meyers -OCTOBER 6, 2014: -- Yakima police Officer Jim Moore sits in his pickup watching traffic exit U.S. Highway 12... A truck pulling two trailers laden with apple bins catches his attention... Stopping the truck, Moore, one of Yakima’s commercial vehicle inspectors, asks driver Sergio Cortez to pull into a nearby parking lot for a weight check and inspection... Forty-five minutes later, after weighing the truck with portable scales, measuring the distance between truck axles and doing some arithmetic, Moore delivers the bad news: The truck’s about 2 tons overweight, and he should take off about four apple bins and rearrange the others to bring the load into balance... Moore said commercial enforcement is different from regular traffic work... For starters, inspectors do not need probable cause to pull over a commercial truck because commercial drivers are required by federal law to submit to inspection at any time... If a truck needs to be weighed, Moore can do it in the field with portable scales that weigh the truck axle by axle, or escort the driver to a public certified weigh station...

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Sep 10, 2014

SAFETY ROADS * Canada - Who is ultimately responsible for the safety of big trucks on the roads?

* BC - Trucking Association: Says buyers, sellers, and distributors can make things safer by measuring their expectations

Vancouver,BC,CAN -NEWS1130, by Brock Hunter -September 7, 2014: -- Truckers are asking everyone, from shippers to consumers, to share the cost of safety on the roads... The BC Trucking Association says buyers, sellers, and distributors can make things safer by measuring their expectations... President Louise Yako says although it may seem far-fetched, even consumers can pitch in... Yako thinks it is not fair how only drivers have to bear the burden on the road... Today marks the beginning of National Trucking Week. There are over 26-thousand licensed commercial truckers in BC and the industry generates over 2-billion dollars in revenue annually in the province...

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Jun 17, 2014

SAFETY ROADS * Japan: Fujitsu´s

* Japan - Object detection software to enhance driver awareness, improve safety

(Image: The new AOD object-detection software system from Fujitsu) 
Minato-ku, Tokyo,Japan -Gizmag, by Colin Jeffrey -May 20, 2014: -- When it comes to driver awareness, we all know how hard it can be to keep an eye on every pedestrian and moving vehicle in our vicinity, particularly when driving in a busy city area. Couple this with the upcoming Kids and Transportation Safety Act in the US that dictates that all cars built from May 2018 onwards must be fitted with rear view cameras as standard, and it becomes doubly important that on-board vehicle cameras are used to their best advantage. To help in this regard, Fujitsu Semiconductor Limited is set to introduce software that assists in detecting and identifying cars, people, and other moving objects and alerts the driver of their position and direction of travel... Using what Fujitsu calls its "Approaching Object Detection Library" in conjunction with a proprietary System-on-Chip (SoC) graphics device, the system uses the images captured by additional vehicle cameras to automatically detect nearby moving objects and compare them to stored representations to identify and categorize them... This is achieved by using elements built into the Approaching Object Detection Library, where vehicle camera images are analyzed in conjunction with a detection algorithm that identifies approaching objects. These are then run with detection-error reduction processing to eliminate false positives. The resulting image is overlaid on real-time images collected through the vehicle's on-board cameras, and displayed on a dashboard monitor, providing vital information for the driver about the objects moving around them...

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May 23, 2014

SAFETY ROADS * USA: Dangerous truckers

* Pensilvania - Trucker column provokes strong reactions

(Photo by Chris Knight/THE MORNING CALL: Three people were killed in this fiery crash on Interstate 78 in Berks County last week when a tractor-trailer in the passing lane smashed into a row of cars from behind) Allentown,PA,USA -The Morning Call, by Paul Carpenter -May 20, 2014: ... "A truck will be in the right lane, then swing out into the left lane in front of a car to pass another vehicle, forcing the car in the left lane to hit the brakes" ... That "is because once [truckers] hit the brakes and lose momentum, it can take them a very long time to build that speed up again … and eat up a lot of fuel." He called on car drivers to just stay out of the way. "Simply back off," TruckerMike said. "Show a little thoughtfulness" ... One of the best ways to reduce dangerous driving by salaried company truckers (independents have incentives of their own to be responsible) might be to heed Shotko's simple and incisive point: Reduce the motive for truckers to be hellbent on bullying everyone out of the way. Require that they be paid by the hour, as done years ago, instead of by the mile...

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Sep 5, 2013

SAFETY ROADS * Europe

* European Commission considers “Big Brother” in vehicle technology

(Image: Transport for London's Intelligent Speed Adaption system) 
Brussels,Belgium -HGV UK -September 3, 2013: -- The European Commission is considering introducing “Big Brother” in vehicle technology that would reduce the speed of cars or trucks that break the speed limit, in a bid to slash road deaths on Europe’s roads... The Commission is proposing that all new vehicles should be fitted with Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA) by 2020... ISA is an in-vehicle system that uses information on the position of the vehicle in a network in relation to the speed limit in force at that particular location. ISA can support drivers in helping them to comply with the speed limit everywhere in the network... This is an important advantage in comparison to the speed limiters for heavy good vehicles and coaches, which only limit the maximum speed...

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May 8, 2013

* USA - Warning system for roads safety

* Texas - TxDOT debuts warning system to increase work-zone safety 

(Photo: Back of Mainline)
Austin,TXS,USA -Transport Topics -6 May 2013: -- The Texas Department of Transportation said it has introduced a warning system that utilizes sensors and electronic signage to reduce work-zone collisions... The ‘end-of-queue warning system’ uses sensors to measure the speeds of approaching vehicles and then warns drivers through portable, electronic signs about upcoming traffic backups due to nighttime lane closures in work zones, TxDOT said... Rumble strips are spaced between sensors to send mild vibrations through oncoming vehicles to get the attention of distracted or drowsy drivers... TxDOT said this is the first time in-state the combination of rumble strips, sensors and electronic signs has been used... The system has been deployed to construction zones in the central Texas Interstate 35 corridor, where 55,000 to 115,000 vehicles travel daily, 25% to 35% of which are trucks, according to TxDOT...


* Ontario / Canada - Combating corrosion 

King City,ONT,CAN -Truck News, by James Menzies -7 May 2013: -- No one in the trucking industry is fond of road salt or chemical de-icers applied to our highways in the winter, but most will accept they’re a necessary evil... Their corrosive effects on vehicles are indisputable, but so too are the benefits to motorists, as chemical de-icers and road salt make otherwise treacherous roadways safe to travel...  Paul Johnson, operations manager with the County of Wellington, sees it from both sides. Operating a fleet of 27 plow trucks, he’s responsible for distributing sand, salt and chemical de-icers during the winter while at the same time trying to protect the municipality’s equipment from its harmful effects... Paul Kirkup, national fleet manager with Krown Corp., said equipment corrosion is a $23-billion problem in the US. He urged fleets to be proactive, to wash and inspect vehicles regularly and to use treatments with rust-inhibiting properties. He suggested using products that aren’t WHMIS controlled so they’re safe to handle... How much can a proactive corrosion prevention program save a fleet? Based on a US Department of National Defense case study, $6 was saved for every dollar spent on corrosion prevention...

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Feb 22, 2013

SAFETY ROADS * Australia

* NSW - Heavy vehicle spreeding slashed 

Sydney,NSW,Australia -ATA Friday Facts -22 Feb 2013: -- The number of heavy vehicles detected speeding at more than 105 km/h on NSW roads has fallen by 79 per cent, according to NSW Police and Roads and Maritime Services (RMS)... The figures follow a number of joint heavy vehicle enforcement operations by NSW Police and RMS in 2012. More than 2,600 heavy vehicles were inspected through these operations, with 93 trucks being grounded for having non-compliant speed limiters... The graph above shows the decline in speeding trucks over the past two years...

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