Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Tag Archives: trucks


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Never quit

From our 2013 conference.

From our 2013 conference.

Soon we’ll be on our way to Washington DC again. Many of you know that I volunteer with the Truck Safety Coalition, a nonprofit group that works to make changes in regulations and rules governing commercial trucks in an effort to make the roads safer for all of us. And you know that I do this because my dad was killed by a sleepy semi driver back in December of 2004.

Eleven years ago my family’s life was changed forever. It seems like a hundred years. It seems like yesterday. And for four days every other year we are immersed in it, totally focused on the issues and the emotions. We will join other families next weekend, other scarred, hurting families, other people that want their loss to mean something. You can read about our last conference in 2013 at my blog posts here, here and, if you read only one, especially here.

During our time together we are safe to express our continued grief regardless of how many years have passed. And we are able to provide support to the new families who have unwillingly joined our painful club. It’s a long, hard road we’re all on, a complicated argument, a difficult fight that we face. The odds of a group of ordinary citizens making inroads in a system influenced by campaign contributions by the American Trucking Association are low. But we’re a noisy group.

And we aren’t going to quit.

Because the people whose lives were lost, and those whose lives were forever changed, deserve to be heard. We are the voice for those that can no longer speak and we make sure they are not forgotten. In their honor we work to keep everyone safer, those of us on the road as well as the drivers of the commercial trucks.

Stay tuned.

For you dad.

For you dad.


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Wake up call

I interrupt this delightful Canadian travelogue to show you something disturbing. Traveling on Ontario’s highways yesterday we thought we saw a very long combination truck. But it was getting dark, and we were trying to find something and neither one of us was sure that we had actually seen what we thought we saw.

Today we confirmed that yes indeed we had seen a very long truck. We came upon another one, this time we were behind it. It had a big sign across the back saying “Long truck.” And it certainly is. Here’s a photo of a third one we saw, this time parked at a truck stop.

Imagine trying to pass this on the freeway.

Imagine trying to pass this on the freeway.

The trailers on single trucks in the United States are 53 feet long. The long trucks we saw here in Ontario have the 53 foot long trailer, and attached to the back is another trailer that is 41 feet long. It takes forever to pass it, and it’s inherently less stable, harder for the driver to control.

To give you an idea of the difference in size, here’s a photo of the same long truck, with a typical American sized truck parked in front of it:

See the difference?

See the difference?

The typical 53 foot trailer is attached to the red cab. Behind it is the long truck being pulled by the yellow cab. It sticks out in front of the red truck, and far, far out behind it.

In the US the American Trucking Association wants to get 33 foot long doubles approved. That’s up from 28 foot doubles allowed now, ten feet longer than what we have on the roads today. If Canada is allowing 53 feet + 41 feet (plus the space in between and the length of the cab towing the whole thing) I think it’s likely they’d like to be able to drive those right across the border and through our states as well. But the US laws are tougher than Canada’s laws, and we need to make sure they stay that way.

Twenty-eight foot doubles that we already have on our roads are scary enough. Thirty-three feet doubles are even worse, and might be the beginning of a push toward longer trucks. I didn’t know such long combinations existed, but I can tell you, having driven beside these things, that it’s scary to even think about them being on our roads.

And that’s why we have to keep fighting.


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Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge

I’ve been trying to figure out how to convert photos to black and white for a long time. Maybe years. Oh, not constantly – just when I see something I think would look better in black and white. I have Adobe Photoshop and it should be easy, but I’ve frequently poked around there searching without any luck. So I did what I’ve heard lots of people do when they get stumped about something.

I went to YouTube.

Apparently people are right; you can find instructions for anything there. After watching a couple videos, and going back to figure out exactly which version of Photoshop I had, I figured out the basics. Then I tinkered around a bit more and came up with this:

Still working on the farm.

Still working on the farm.

It seems to fit in perfectly with Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge, specifically a shot of something with an engine.

This old farm truck sits out by the road advertising events held at the farm. Soon it will be pumpkin picking time. Seems too early doesn’t it, but seasons come and seasons go.

This old workhorse has seen a lot of them, and I think it remains beautiful, and certainly photo worthy, no matter what the season.


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What gets reported?

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.


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Share your world

Cee challenges people to share a bit about themselves by answering questions she poses. Here’s the latest list:

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Ironically as a kid I wanted to be a truck driver. Something about being on the road appealed to me. Of course I didn’t know about the rest of the job, the way they are paid, the stress, or the danger. Still the road pulls at me today and probably always will.

If you were invisible, where would you go?
Once upon a time I would have wanted to go into the executive meetings at work to figure out what was behind some of the policy. But since I’m retired I don’t have that urge anymore. I guess now I’d like to be in my Senators’ offices to see what happens day to day and how they make their decisions.

Would you rather forget everyone else’s name all the time or have have everyone forget your name all the time?
Definitely I’d rather my name was forgotten if in return I could remember other people’s names. I am so bad at names. I forget them immediately even when I’m concentrating on remembering them. I forget my neighbor’s names, people I worked with names, friends names. I’m hopeless.

Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?
I have a hard time remembering last week. But I know I’m grateful to be retired and having most of my time to myself. This week I’m grateful for beautiful weather, not too hot, not too cold, not too wet. The dog and I should be able to camp in the backyard a couple of nights and that’s always special.

Me and my girl.

Me and my girl.


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Hard hit

Stormy times

Stormy times

The safety of everyone on our roads and highways took a big hit last week. The Comprehensive Transportation and Consumer Protection Act of 2015 (S. 1732) passed out of the Commerce Committee and is headed to the full Senate complete with all the anti-safety aspects that we fought to extract. The ability for a truck company to hide safety statistics from the public, to allow the hiring of 18 year olds to drive across the country (some states had higher minimum ages, but this will now be overrun by federal law), creating more hoops for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to jump through in order to mandate higher insurance requirements, all of these and more are still included in the bill. Every amendment presented by a safety conscious Committee Member lost by one vote, or by a voice vote. Every amendment offered by a American Trucking Association supported Committee Member passed.

The voting was straight down party lines.

I don’t understand. If you’re elected by the majority of people in your state, but you’re only going to vote the party line without listening or even considering another opinion, what’s the point of discussing anything at all? If you can’t listen to the safety concerns of many of your constituents, if you can’t let the overwhelming evidence sway you even the slightest toward safety, if you are more concerned about your campaign contributors than the safety of regular citizens, well, then there is no hope for the future.

I’ll be honest. It has been a difficult few months. It’s hard to look forward and figure out what the next move is. Obviously the next move is to call Senators when S1732 gets to the floor of the full Senate. But sill, it’s been so discouraging. It would be easy to just let it go. I’m beginning to wonder if we’re wrong. Maybe this is what the population wants…larger trucks, younger drivers, longer driving hours, the public shouldering the expenses when a crash occurs…if so, so be it.

I was driving this morning, looking for a photo challenge shot. Out in the cornfields of rural America I had all sorts of negative thoughts bouncing around my brain. But as I drove the dirt roads, past farms and small towns, other voices started to push their way into my brain. Voices of the families. The sons and daughters, wives and husbands, siblings, grandparents, and parents of those we’ve lost. I remember saying years ago that if we saved one life my family would be even, and my sister responding emphatically that no we wouldn’t. We’ll never be even, never be whole, no matter how hard we work.

But that’s no excuse for giving up. It’s no excuse for abandoning those who can no longer speak, no excuse not to expose the horrors and the grief, no excuse not to push for change.

By the time I made my way back home I had taken a deep breath and begun thinking about what’s next. There is more than one way to approach safety. If we can’t get it done through Congress maybe we can get something done through the DOT. And if the DOT can’t get anything done then maybe we go straight to the big trucking companies. We’ve already done that with one, that company realizes that safe can be profitable. Maybe we just have to spread that word. Meanwhile we still provide support and advice and love to the families who have been forever changed by truck crashes, one family at a time.

We lost big time this month. But we won’t give up and we won’t go away. There’s only one way to move and that’s forward.

Did I get the photo I was looking for? You’ll have to wait and see.

Clouds around every corner.

Clouds around every corner.


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Walking through debate theory

Thinking about stuff

Thinking about stuff

When you feel passionately about something it’s only natural that you’ll come across others that feel differently, people who are just as passionate about their own views. And with social media we often see up close and personal all the different opinions of the people we call friends. Where a political opinion or a religious comment might be left silent in our face to face dealings, the misplaced feeling of anonymity causes many of us to open right up about what we feel strongly about when we’re online.

I’ve never been a great debater. I don’t even like watching debates because I can see both sides of most arguments, and I don’t like to see anyone lose. But these days with politics continually running on 24/7 news stations there’s lots of fodder for posts. And people take sides loudly and regularly. Sometimes it’s made me uncomfortable…and a few times I’ve thought about unfriending folks who have vastly different opinions about religion and politics than my own.

But I’ve never unfriended anyone. Because if I unfriend someone because they think different than me how will I get to hear the other side of the argument? How can there be any expansion of my mind, any reconsideration of other points of view if I don’t even see their comments?

I thought about all of this yesterday during a morning walk. I was having a Facebook debate about a truck safety issue with a friend. We don’t agree on some things because we come from different life experiences. We base our opinions on the things we know. That’s what everyone does. Some things we will have to agree to disagree about. Other things will be resolved on common ground.

In the end what I came to realize on my walk is that friends don’t have to like the same things, think the same things, support the same things. Friends just have to be open to new ideas, respectful of different points of view. Debate, as uncomfortable as it is, is how change happens.

And change can be good, even when it’s hard.


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There’s still hope

Last week I let you know about an amendment attached to an important bill in the Senate Appropriations Committee that would make our roads more dangerous.  Senator Shelby from Alabama offered the amendment replacing 28 foot double truck trailers with 33 foot double trailers.  The 33s would be legal across the country, even in states that have shorter limits on the length of truck trailers.

If you followed the fight on the Hill or comments attached to that post you’ll know that the Shelby amendment passed by one vote.  So 33 foot trailers are now in the bill that will be considered by the full Senate when everyone gets back to Washington after the 4th of July break.

This was a big disappointment for our group who are working hard to make our roads safer.  We believe that 33 double trailers are not as safe as 28 foot double trailers which are less safe than single trailers.   I’ll be honest.  We took a couple days to feel discouraged; but this week we’re back to work.

Now that our Senators are home in their districts for a few days we are visiting their local offices, talking to their staff about what happened in the Senate Appropriations Committee.  We’re talking about the dangers of 33 foot double trailers and  passing out statistics, studies, and personal stories.   We’re asking the Members to please vote for any amendment presented that would remove the 33 foot double trailers from the bill, and if that doesn’t happen to vote NO on the entire bill.

Really.  Vote NO on the bill in it’s entirety.

Voting no on an important bill that is necessary to move our country forward is counter intuitive for us and the Senators alike.  But aside from the trucking issues within this bill there are other controversies as well.  It’s possible the bill will not move forward.  It’s possible it will move forward but not in the present form.  It’s possible we will win this battle because of other problems, other fights, that we aren’t even aware of.

We don’t know.

Yesterday husband and I drove an hour to meet with the regional managers of our two Senators .   I’m always nervous when preparing for a meeting with our Congressional members.  I don’t know why.   I guess because we grew up looking up to these people and they still seem intimidating.  And I suppose I’m also nervous because I’m asking such important things of them; things with such huge consequences.  Of course I shouldn’t feel nervous, I’ve never been treated with anything but interested respect.

That’s a lesson in itself.

On our way down to the big city I saw a State Trooper SUV from the commercial truck inspection team that had pulled over a truck.  That always makes me smile, because I’m glad inspectors are out on the road.   I know that one in five trucks pulled over for inspection are taken out of service because the vehicle is too dangerous to be on the road.   I took the sighting as a sign that everything would be OK at our meetings.   And as we got close to the city I saw a big orange truck, my sign for dad saying hi, and I knew for sure things would go well.

And they did.

I had dad’s picture in my folder, looking up at me, reminding me why we were there.  And because we weren’t in crazy busy DC we got a lot of face time with the regional managers.  Both asked good questions, engaged with us, told stories of their own and seemed genuinely empathetic.  They will pass our opposition to the 33 foot double trailers in the Appropriations Bill on to their Senators.

We did the best we could to convince them that safety has to come before profits, that longer trucks are less safe.  That everyone is in danger, including the drivers of the trucks.   We listened, too, to their concerns about the bill, about truck safety, about commerce.   The only way to a solution is to understand the other side.

Whatever happens now I can say we did the very best we could.

To those of you in the States, have a wonderful 4th of July  holiday weekend with family and friends.  Stay safe if you’re on the water, if you’re watching fireworks and when you’re on our roads.

We want you all back safe and sound come Monday morning.

 

 


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Truck update

I want to take a moment and bring you all up to date on the assault on safety happening right now in Congress.  It’s happening quietly as summer blooms and everyone has other, more relaxing, things on their minds.

Let me explain.

Congress is trying to finish up on an Appropriations Bill for Fiscal Year 2016.  It’s a huge bill and one that has to be resolved soon.  The House has already put together their version and now it’s over on the Senate side.

You might remember I talked about the House amendment that would “de-fund“ the study (mandated in a previous bill) that would determine if the minimum required level of liability insurance a commercial carrier has to have is enough.  The level is currently at $750,000 and hasn’t been updated since 1980 even though medical costs have skyrocketed since then.  We fought to get that amendment taken out of the House bill, but it was approved by a wide margin.  Amazingly members of the House didn’t even want a study to be done.

Now the bill is in the Senate and there are several problematic provisions including one that allows truckers to drive up to 82 hours per week and of course the delay regarding the minimum liability insurance.  But worse is an amendment that will likely be offered as early as today by Senator Shelby of Alabama.

Senator Shelby is asking that Congress approve increasing 28-foot double trailers to 33-foot double trailers.  That’s an additional 10 feet (5 on each trailer).  This will mean the trucks will require an additional 6 foot rider turning radius and they will need an additional 22 feet to stop.  Studies show that double 33s performed worse than double 28s in avoidance maneuvers.  This adds to the risk of death and injury to any of us sharing the roads with these larger and potentially heavier trucks.

I spent time yesterday afternoon calling members of the Senate Appropriations Committee to ask that they vote NO on the Shelby Amendment.  I started with the 15 Republicans on the committee as they are more likely to side with the trucking industry.  It’s an uphill battle; no one wants to talk to someone not in their district.  But neither Michigan Senator is on this committee and in order to be heard I have to get other Senators’ offices to listen to me.  I have to remind them that as members of the Appropriations Committee they are supposed to be representing all Americans, not just those in their district.  Generally they concede enough to put me through to someone’s voice mail.

It’s frustrating.  If these provisions stay in the bill they will be signed into law by the President.  Our roads will become even less safe than they are now.  We’ve been fighting to lower the maximum hours of service allowed, we’ve been fighting to get minimum insurance increased, and we’ve been fighting against bigger, longer, and heavier trucks.  We’ve made progress, but it’s like climbing a sand dune.  One step up, then long slides down.

The trucking industry is now using large important bills that have to be passed, like the Appropriations Bill, to insert their agenda.  It’s the only way to get anything passed in the political environment we face today. But safety issues don’t belong in a larger unrelated bill.  That in itself is another battle.

I know this got long.  I have to get going now, I have some more Democrats to reach this morning before they head into session.  I’ll let you know how it goes.  Our lives are depending on the outcome.

Literally.


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Assault on safety

Most of you know that my dad was killed by a tired trucker in 2004, and that since then I’ve been working with the Truck Safety Coalition trying to make changes in the interest of safety.

Today there was a semi and tourist bus crash in Pennsylvania.  At least 3 people on the bus are dead and more are injured, some critically.  I usually like to reserve judgement until we know the cause, but photos seem to indicate the semi crossed the median and the tour bus struck the trailer of the semi in the center, breaking it in two.  There are photos showing the dark gash through the median, the front of the bus buried inside what’s left of the semi trailer.

Multiple dead, multiple injured.  People who were here from Italy just enjoying the sights on a beautiful day.  And on this same beautiful day I received an urgent message from Truck Safety to call my House Representative because the trucking industry is leading a full assault on safety in the latest appropriations bill.

Among other things they want to take away funding for a study that will determine whether the current minimum liability insurance commercial carriers are required to carry should be increased.  The minimum amount of insurance is $750,000.  That hasn’t been raised or reviewed in over 35 years.

Think about medical expenses which have skyrocketed in the past 35 years.  Then consider there hasn’t even been a cost of living increase.

Think, too, about multiple people injured in a crash who need intensive medical attention.  Did you know all claims from a crash are paid from the total available liability insurance?  So if the company has the minimum $750,000 of insurance, and there are, for example, four injuries or any other claims for that matter, they all split the total.  The minimum won’t be nearly enough, and expenses over and above have to be covered by the families.  And when the families run out of money taxpayers pick up the rest in the form of medicaid.

The trucking industry would rather all of us shoulder the cost of crashes caused by their race for profits.

So on this beautiful day people were killed and injured through no fault of their own.  And at the same time Congress is getting ready to pass a bill that will gut our ability to even get the minimum insurance requirements studied.  The trucking industry appears to be in charge of our Representatives.

But there’s an amendment that will negate the part of the bill which would defund the minimum insurance study.  It’s called the Cartwright Amendment, and it will be voted on very soon, perhaps tonight, perhaps tomorrow.  Possibly Friday.

Here’s how you can help.

Call or email your House Representative.  You can find out who it is by going to this site and putting in your zip code.     Tell your Member of Congress to vote for the Cartwright Amendment which will remove the provision to defund rulemaking on minimum insurance in the THUD Appropriations Bill.  Tell them that minimum insurance that hasn’t been increased or even reviewed in 35 years is not acceptable.  Tell them that anti-safe trucking measures don’t belong in an appropriations bill.

Tell them you care about safety on our roads.  That you believe they should stand up for safety rather than profits.

You can make a difference.

Thank you.

Special Dad

Special Dad