Preventing Accidents on our Highways

Don’t Wait Until a Lawsuit to Hold the Trucking Industry Accountable

Imagine if twice every month in the United States, a small commercial airliner were to crash, killing everyone onboard.

Hard to fathom, right?

Because we as a society wouldn’t let it get that far. At the first hint of a pattern, there would be scores of hearings and investigations scrutinizing the airline industry as a whole, along with any relevant operational or equipment failures.

New safety protocols would be assured, because we don’t tolerate that type of preventable death toll in the United States.

Or do we?

Unfortunately, we do and it’s happening — just not with jets. The carnage is instead occuring on our roads, where one industry in particular has been treated with kid gloves even as fatalities continue to rise.

We’re referring to the trucking industry.

A Pattern of Opposition

Companies that install these types of collision prevention systems say they can eliminate more than seven out of 10 rear-end truck collisions, according to The Star.

And on at least 10 occasions since the late 1990s, the newspaper learned, the National Transportation Safety Board has urged federal regulators to require these types of forward crash avoidance systems on new rigs.

This year, as in several years previously, it included automatic emergency braking systems for trucks on its annual list of “Most Wanted Transportation Safety Improvements.”

But the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, lobbied heavily by the trucking industry, has repeatedly resisted.

Money buys influence in Washington — that is a known fact. But why the fervent opposition?

Perhaps industry leaders have calculated the financial risk and decided they’d rather pay for lobbying (and a multitude of wrongful death lawsuits) than face the cost of dealing with the problem head-on.

But what about saving lives? Where does that enter the picture?

Something we’ve pointed out before bears repeating here: 66 percent of trucking fatalities involve occupants of other cars and vehicles.

These are people who are just going about their daily business, driving to school or work, often caught completely unaware as a behemoth vehicle barrels down the road heading straight toward them.

And yes, many truck drivers are decent, working class people trying to make a living in a monotonous and tiring job. But even the good drivers can make mistakes. So with or without the bad actors, the industry and government need to do a better job of enforcing safety and eliminating error.

In the meantime, we’ll keep fighting on our end to hold these companies accountable when these types of accidents do occur. We can, at the very least, send a message through our tort system that this kind of preventable death toll will not be tolerated.