Truck Safety Article By USA Today + Segment on PBS News Hour Weekend

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Thanks to USA TODAY Network for superb reporting on cruel and inhumane trucking abuses that are tantamount to imposing economic slavery on truck drivers – in the 21st century in the U.S.A.

Hundreds of California port truckers have gotten into accidents, leading to more than 20 fatalities from 2013 to 2015, according to the USA TODAY Network’s analysis of federal crash and port trade data….

“Federal law prohibits commercial truckers from driving more than 11 hours at a time, and they can’t work at all after 14 hours, until they have had 10 hours of rest. Government studies show that for every hour past 11 that someone drives, the chances of crashing increase exponentially.”

The USA Today investigation “RIGGED” is the result of a year long research project and can be found with video athttps://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/news/rigged-forced-into-debt-worked-past-exhaustion-left-with-nothing/
 
Kudos to investigative reporter Brett Murphy and photographer Omar Ornelas for this piece on corporate greed and power and governmental indifference that endangers us every day.

Thanks to PBS News Hour Weekend for showing a brief segment on Fathers Day eve at  http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/labor-violations-force-truckers-life-servitude/#transcript

While working at DOT staffers and I sometimes wondered how the 11 hour rule would be shorter if every member of Congress and every political appointee were required to spend a week riding with a truck driver.
Lou Lombardo

Leave a Reply