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It Happened Again! Aging Trucker in Deadly Accident in Michigan When Are We Going to Insist on Mandatory Retirement at Age 65? We Do For Airline Pilots in Open Skies – Why Not Truckers on Busy Highways?

Guest post by: Terry Cochran

Article Overview: Trucking companies may want to voluntarily take action themselves to retire their drivers at an earlier age before the government steps in and acts. If trucking entrepeneurs don't act than the government certainly should.

It Happened Again! Aging Trucker in Deadly Accident in Michigan When Are We Going to Insist on Mandatory Retirement at Age 65? We Do For Airline Pilots in Open Skies – Why Not Truckers on Busy Highways?

By Terry
Cochran

A
70-year-old truck driver was travelling west on I-196 near Grandville, MI,
driving a semi-truck carrying pies when his truck crossed the centerline and
collided with a 20078 Chevy Tahoe. The truck careened over the edge of an
overpass and both vehicles caught fire.

Motorists
who stopped at the scene and Grandville police officers helped pull Robert
Gortner, 82, from the Tahoe. But his wife, a passenger, was trapped in the
vehicle and Robert Osborne, 70, was trapped in his truck. Edna Gortner, 83, of Grand Rapids and Osborn
of Macelona both were killed.  An elderly
passenger in the Tahoe was killed along with the truck driver. That was in
September 2009.

About a year
earlier in July 2008 a 71-year-old truck driver on I-75 in Michigan slammed into vehicles in the
southbound lanes, causing the death of 19-year-old Kara Joan Larivee of
Rochester Hills. The 71-year-old driver, already driving at a high rate of
speed, failed to react quickly enough to the fact that traffic had come to a
standstill because of merging traffic.

The common
denominators of both tragedies is that neither accident should have occurred,
no one should have been killed, and both truck drivers were 70 or older.

As a
personal liability attorney who has grieved with clients over the needless
deaths resulting from car-truck accidents, I have argued in the past that truck
related deaths can be reduced by paying more attention to highway safety and
driver fatigue. In recent months I have become convinced the effort should now
involve a three-prong approach – safer roads, less driver fatigue, and a
mandatory retirement age for truck drivers.

The Federal
Motor Carrier Safety Administration reports that as many as 4,000 Americans a
year are killed in collisions with trucks that have incurred thousands of
safety violations, such as defective brakes, bad tires or loads dangerously
beyond weight limits. Many of the truck drivers involved had little or no
training, many were 65 or older, and many others had a history of alcohol and
drug abuse.

Because Michigan does not allow
for punitive damages against truck drivers in effect all truckers have immunity
against being held accountable. For that reason truckers causing tragic
accidents will continue driving even though untrained, continue to drive under
the influence of drugs or alcohol, and continue to drive when age slows their
reflexes and judgment.

Truck
accidents occur because of fatigue, highway design faults, defective equipment,
and driver error. Some causes are predictable; others are not. The result is
always predictable, though -- the shear volume of a truck traveling 40 m.p.h.
or faster will always create havoc.

The biggest
killer on our highways is fatigue. Federal transportation officials must come
up with stricter guidelines to make sure that logbooks are properly kept and
that commercial carriers ensure their drivers get the rest they need between
trips.

State
highway departments throughout the U.S must adopt an aggressive program to
widen two-lane highways throughout areas to make high-speed travel safer for
all. Law enforcement officials must police our highways to enforce speed limits
rather than tolerating drivers traveling 80 m.p.h. or higher.

My law firm,
Cochran, Foley & Associates, went on record as a truck accident law firm in
Michigan and
an advocate for reforms to reduce the number of car-truck collisions after
representing the family of a 5-year-old boy who was killed when a semi-tractor
truck struck from behind a vehicle being driven by his mother.

The minimum
reforms I championed then were: paving construction to widen our two-lane
highways or at least provide for more left-turn flare lanes increased speed
enforcement on two-lane highways stricter enforcement of truck driver's driving
time limits can prevent deaths.

I now add to
my call for reform the need to lower the maximum driving age for all truckers
to 65. Because we cannot predict with any certainty the age when a driver’s
physical and mental reactions begin to slow, then 65 becomes the best standard
because at that age the driver can draw Social Security and Medicare in
addition to any retirement benefits or 401k investments.

Age 65 also
is the mandatory retirement age for airline pilots thanks to a bill signed in
February 2007 raising the mandatory retirement age to 65. Going back to the
1960s airline pilots were forced to retire at age 60 by the Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA).

Think about
that. A pilot flies his plane in open air, without any other planes within
visible sight, is aided by a co-pilot a seat away and by a controller on the
ground, and often flies on auto-pilot. Yet even with this redundancy and backup
help the FAA for more than half a decade said it was unsafe for a pilot over 60
to continue on the job. Now it’s considered unsafe at age 65.

So why in
the world do we allow truckers to continue driving at age 65, 70, 75 even 80?
Truck drivers at high speeds every day must make split-second decisions that
require extra-ordinary quick reaction times. Common sense, if not physical
exams, eye and hearing tests, and stress tests, tells us that a driver age
65-70 is not physically and mentally equipped for this challenge.

If a truck
driver makes a mistake it is very hard to correct because of the mass and size
of a truck. Most truck drivers are good drivers who drive defensively and are
qualified and trained to be good drivers. But only a single driver error in a
lifetime of driving can have tragic results. And as that driver nears the end
of a career of driving the odds increase dramatically that a fatal mistake will
occur.

I cannot
rest at peace because I know with certainty that before the year ends someone
else will needlessly die somewhere on a highway. I am certain of this because
federal officials, state and county governments, and law enforcement won't take
any actions beyond the civil and criminal judgments recorded. None of us should
be at peace until certain actions are taken. And these actions are: widening
our two-lane highways; adding left-turn flare lanes as needed; stricter
enforcement to ensure log books reflect actual driving time and rest time; and
establishing a mandatory retirement for truck drivers at age 65.

Join me in
this campaign by writing letters to the Federal Transportation Agency, to the
governor of your state, and to newspaper and television editors. Increased
public awareness will result in the changes that are needed to save thousands
of lives. What we say does matter and will count for change.

 

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Article Tags: truck drivers, truck fatals, trucking accidents, trucking safety
Referred by: http://www.westwindcos.com



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