This morning you’re waking up to breaking news about a horrible movie shooting in Louisiana; a gunman killed two people and injured nine more before killing himself. The details, minute by minute, are being discussed with great urgency. It is pointed out that this is the third mass shooting in the past month — the Charleston church, the military shootings and the theater shootings last night.

It’s all horrible and demands our attention.

What you won’t see discussed on the morning news is that around midnight last night in Indiana traffic was slowed in a construction zone. A semi didn’t slow, hit a car from behind, then another semi. Five are dead, including a child. You won’t see an urgent discussion about the spike in truck crashes that has occurred in the past year or that these crashes have gone up in each of the last four years.

I don’t understand why one story is newsworthy and the other is not.

This is one of the problems we face while fighting for safer roads; the fact that no one is noticing the deaths of individuals, usually one by one, across the country. Five people died in Indiana this morning. They died horrific, violent deaths. Why doesn’t that make anyone in the news pay attention?

Death caused by a truck is just as random as death caused by a deranged shooter. Maybe more. Death by truck doesn’t pick out a certain race or ethnicity. It doesn’t care about gender or sexual preference. It doesn’t even care about your politics.

Death by truck can happen to anyone, anytime.

They say the President was notified of the theater shootings as he traveled overnight to Africa. You can bet no one is calling him about the 5 people that died a few hours later on an Indiana road.

I’m not taking away anything from the mass shootings, certainly this is an issue that requires our attention. But violent death is violent death, no matter what its cause. A mass shooting in a theater is no more important than a mass death by truck. It deserves the same media coverage, the same attention, the same concern.

The Senate is debating a bill today that will increase the length of double trailers on trucks. If you are not in favor of longer, heavier trucks traveling the roads, perhaps following your family’s car, call your Senator right now, and tell them you oppose all anti truck safety measures in the DRIVE bill.

They’ll know what you’re talking about, even though many of them just don’t want to hear it.

11:48 July 24: Please call your Senators and ask them to support two amendments to the DRIVE Act: The Feinstein-Wicker Amendment which will require a safety study to be done by the DOT prior to making 33 feet trailers (up from 28 feet) allowed on all state roads, and the Markey amendment which would take out the pilot program allowing 18-20 year olds drive cross country in semi trucks. Each state has two senators. You can find your Senator’s phone # here

Thank you very much for your support. It means the world to me.