You’ve
probably noticed drivers who are texting, talking on their phones, applying
makeup, eating, or any number of other activities which distract them from
driving and put other drivers and passengers at risk. Now, imagine that person
who is not paying attention to the road is a truck driver. When you consider
that a fully loaded truck needs the length of a football field to come to a
complete stop—assuming it is traveling 60 mph on a totally dry road--you can
see that when a truck driver is distracted, even for a moment, a tragic
accident can result. The most recent federal regulations mandate shorter
braking distances for commercial trucks however don’t affect existing
18-wheelers, only newly manufactured trucks.
While all
drivers should avoid distractions which can lead to accidents, there is a large
disparity between a crash between passenger vehicles and a crash involving a
commercial truck and a passenger vehicle. A fully loaded truck is 20-30 times
as heavy as a passenger vehicle and in a collision between the two the
passengers in the smaller vehicle rarely fare well. Of the half a million
trucking accidents in the United States each year approximately 5,000 of those
will result in fatalities and a large percentage of the remainder will result
in very serious injury to those in the passenger vehicle. Truck drivers are
constantly under pressure to get their loads delivered; both from their
employers and even from their own family members as their paycheck depends on
the time they spend behind the wheel of the truck.
