A 70-year-old trucker was traveling west on I-196 near Grandville, MI, driving a semi-truck carrying cakes when his truck crossed the center line and collided with a 20078 Chevy Tahoe. The truck overturned over the edge of a pass. elevated and both vehicles caught fire.
Stopped motorists and Grandville police officers helped pull 82-year-old Robert Gortner out of 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 died along with the truck driver. That was in September 2009.
About a year earlier, in July 2008, a 71-year-old trucker on I-75 in Michigan crashed into vehicles in the southbound lanes, killing 19-year-old Kara Joan Larivee of Rochester Hills. The 71-year-old driver, who was already driving at a high speed, did not react quickly enough to the fact that traffic had stopped due to the traffic merger.
The common denominator of both tragedies is that no accident should have happened, no one should have died, and both truckers were 70 or older.
As a personal liability lawyer who has grieved with clients over needless deaths resulting from car and truck accidents, I have argued in the past that truck-related deaths can be reduced by paying more attention to road safety and driver fatigue. . In recent months I have become convinced that the effort must now involve a three-pronged approach: safer roads, less driver fatigue, and a mandatory retirement age for truck drivers.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration reports that up to 4,000 Americans are killed each year in collisions with trucks that have incurred thousands of safety violations, such as faulty brakes, bad tires, or loads that are dangerously overweight. Many of the truckers 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 punitive damages against truckers, in effect, all truckers have immunity from being held liable. For that reason, truckers who cause tragic accidents will continue to drive even though they are not trained, they will continue to drive under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and they will continue to drive when age diminishes their reflexes and judgment.
Truck accidents occur due to fatigue, road design flaws, faulty equipment, and driver error. Some causes are predictable; others are not. However, the result is always predictable: the volume cut from a truck traveling at 40 mph or faster will always create havoc.
The biggest killer on our roads is fatigue. Federal transportation officials need to come up with stricter guidelines to make sure log books are properly maintained and commercial carriers make sure their drivers get the rest they need between trips.
US state highway departments should adopt an aggressive program to widen two-lane highways in all areas to make high-speed travel safer for everyone. Law enforcement officials need to police our roads to enforce speed limits instead of tolerating drivers traveling 80 mph or more.
I became 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-truck collided behind a vehicle driven by his mother.
The minimal reforms I advocated then were: paving construction to widen our two-lane highways or at least provide more left-turn lanes increased speed control on two-lane highways stricter enforcement of driving time limits of truck drivers 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 certainty the age at which a driver’s physical and mental reactions begin to subside, then 65 becomes the best standard because at that age, the driver can collect Social Security and Medicare in addition to any retirement benefit or 401k investments.
65 is also 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, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) required airline pilots to retire at age 60.
Think about it. A pilot flies his plane outdoors, with no other aircraft in sight, is assisted by a co-pilot a seat away and by a controller on the ground, and often flies on autopilot. Yet even with this redundancy and backup help, the FAA said for more than half a decade that it was not safe for a pilot over the age of 60 to continue on the job. He now considers himself insecure at 65.
So why do we allow truckers to keep driving at 65, 70, 75 and even 80 years old? Truck drivers at high speeds every day must make split-second decisions that require extraordinarily fast reaction times. Common sense, if not physical exams, eye and hearing tests, and stress tests, tells us that a 65-70 year old driver is not physically or mentally ready for this challenge.
If a truck driver makes a mistake, it is very difficult to correct it due to the mass and size of the truck. Most truckers are good drivers who drive defensively and are qualified and trained to be good drivers. But just one driver error in a lifetime of driving can have tragic results. And as that driver nears the end of his driving career, the odds of a fatal error dramatically increasing.
I cannot rest in peace because I know for a fact that before the year is out someone else will needlessly die somewhere on a highway. I am sure of this because federal officials, state and county governments, and law enforcement will take no action beyond civil and criminal convictions on record. None of us should be at peace until certain steps are taken. And these actions are: expanding our two-lane highways; add left turn lanes as needed; stricter enforcement to ensure log books reflect actual driving time and rest time; and establish a mandatory retirement for truckers at age 65.
Join me in this campaign by writing letters to the Federal Transportation Agency, your state governor, and newspaper and television publishers. Greater 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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