Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Truckers Resist Rules on Sleep, Despite Risks of Drowsy Driving - NYTimes.com




Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) has gotten the Senate Appropriations Committee to put truckers rest regulations on hold. She says they cut down on night time trucking, putting more truck on the road during the day.
Advocates for Highway Safety vigorously disagrees, seeing only special interest lobbying atwork.

Is this an example of why regulations should be evidence, not binding determinants of what is required by the duty of reasonable care under the circumstances? - gwc

Truckers Resist Rules on Sleep, Despite Risks of Drowsy Driving - NYTimes.com

by Jad Mouawad and Elizabeth Harris
"The tractor-trailer set off at 2:30 a.m. from Springfield, Mo., the usual time and place. Nearly 11 hours later, along the Will Rogers Turnpike in Oklahoma, fatigue caught up.

At mile marker 321.5, near the town of Miami, the semi plowed into a line of cars stopped on the highway. Ten people were killed. The 76-year-old truck driver, who survived, had probably fallen asleep, federal investigators later concluded.

What is remarkable about these events, which took place five years ago this month, is how common such accidents are. For decades, federal authorities have tried to ensure that truck drivers get adequate rest. But in a business that lives by the clock, miles mean money. Commercial truck operators have resisted, arguing, in effect, that Washington cannot regulate sleep.

Continue reading the main story
But now sleep-deprived driving — an open secret among truckers — has once again come to the fore, after the June 7 accident involving the comedian Tracy Morgan on a dark stretch of the New Jersey Turnpike 45 miles south of New York City. Prosecutors say the Walmart truck driver whose tractor-trailer slammed into a van carrying Mr. Morgan, critically injuring him and killing another passenger, had not slept in more than 24 hours."
'via Blog this'

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