r/Infuriating • Valued Contributor • 4d ago

Trucker crashes after falling asleep driving 40ton deathmachine

This piece of shit driving all over the road putting other peoples lives at risk

214 Upvotes

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37

u/nBenit 4d ago

I don't get it. Why do truck drivers drive like this? Is there a quota they have to hit or something? Like a time limit on delivery or whatever?

40

u/1wrx2subarus 4d ago

You nailed it, if Trucking Companies had to pay $100M every time one of their drivers falls asleep.. They’d insist on hours of service being more stringent.

The best way to fix this is to go after the deep pockets. Make Trucking companies pay and beyond that, their customers expediting them. Hint: Big Box Stores that we all shop at.

2

u/GlazzKitsune 4d ago

Honestly yes, if you had to pay a massive tax it would help. But it would also really hurt smaller stores or ma-pa shops that also need truck delivery

2

u/JoyousMadhat 3d ago

You can make exceptions for businesses that earn less than a certain threshold. But actually, they should just require truck companies to hire more people have them tag team after driving for a certain hours and not rush.

1

u/GlazzKitsune 3d ago

I feel like there are other options now, like maybe a system that sees one is swerving across lanes and beeps for 10-30secs. Or a system that reminds drivers to touch certain points on the wheel every 2-3 minutes or beeps annoyingly. Almost like in flying where you get a stick shaker when stalling or a "sink rate" warning.

2 drivers per load would double any shipping price and again for big companies I would love to see them eat it but are you ready to see price increases for products across the board, I am not.

1

u/desperateelephants 4d ago

As a comparison in the US military. Any kind of aviation mishap warrants several full blown investigations whether it be for safety or criminal negligence. Boards would review everything leading up to a mishap and much further down the line would SOPs be rewritten. A commander, pilot, or crewmember may be kicked out of their position regardless of whether they were charged for the failure.

For exactly the reason like this driver, all aircrew are mandated a max number of working hours and minimum number of rest hours. It's just a world of difference when there's a genuine desire to protect human lives over the profit margin.

1

u/DeletedUsernameHere 3d ago

Drivers have mandated hour restrictions. 14 hour max on duty time and 11 hours max drive time, with a 34 hour reset per 60hr/7day or 70hr/8 day week.

They're also required a 30m break for 8 hours of cumulative driving.

-1

u/aggiedigger 4d ago

This isn’t America. Would be a great idea, but hard to enforce American will globally despite how hard we try to

2

u/whatisdreampunk 4d ago

The comment sounds pretty general to me. Describing the problem illustrated here and proposing solutions, not specific to America. Nobody really cares about this one particular instance, more the general problem.

0

u/aggiedigger 4d ago

Perhaps I should have stated 1st world and not just America . Where this driver works without the need for a seatbelt nor shoes, big box stores and regulations likely don’t exist as it would pertaining to the statement that I responded to.