trucks | Change Is Hard

May 14, 2015
by dawnkinster 17 Comments

Dreams

Apparently I was dreaming this morning. And this is how it went:

My husband, brother, and I had a meeting with Governor Snyder (Michigan) to talk about truck safety issues. But the night before I had to sleep overnight at the hospital because I had a blood draw scheduled for early in the morning. And there was confusion about when the transport van was taking us to the meeting in the morning.

Morning comes after a restless night sleeping on an uncomfortable bed. I can’t get my husband and brother to get moving and the nurse is there for the blood draw and I’m trying to find out when the car will arrive to take us to the meeting with the governor and she’s busy talking to some other patient. Finally she takes my blood and tells me the car will be here at 6 a.m. but as its already 7:30 we’ve missed it.

Our meeting is soon, so the nurse drives my husband, my brother and I and, inexplicably, Howard Stern to the meeting location. My husband and brother somehow got to shower. I did not as there wasn’t time and I feel messy and unorganized.

We arrive at the meeting site, which appears to be a house with a two car garage that has been converted to a bedroom. Katie (the dog) is in the house and is coming to the meeting too; my husband and brother go into the house to get her. I sit in the van with Howard Stern and tell him this is not a media event, it’s a meeting about truck safety, and if I allow him to come he has to be quiet. He says he’s never met the governor and would like to come.

He and I get out of the car, my husband, brother, Katie the dog, and Howard and I troop into the converted garage. Inside is a television camera, and a reporter that I didn’t expect. The governor is sitting in a chair wearing a mustard yellow shirt and bright green scrub pants. (This alone should tell you we’re in a dream – he only wears blue shirts at events like this, never mustard yellow.) He hurriedly puts on a navy jacket and stands up to meet us.

There’s a bed in the middle of the room that we have to climb over to meet him. I note that it’s not made and has grass clippings all over it. Obviously Katie has been outside on a freshly mowed lawn and has jumped all over the bed.

I shake hands with the governor, others are introducing themselves to members of my family. The governor says “Let’s go talk a minute Dawn.” and we climb back over the bed and walk into a storage closet.

He wants to know why Howard Stern is there. I tell him I’d told Howard that this was not a media event, but I wondered why there was a television camera there myself. He said he would rather Howard not be at the meeting.

And then Katie the dog jumps on me for real to wake me up. It’s 5:05 a.m. I have a doctor’s appointment at 7:50 a.m. Time to begin another day.

Which is just as well.

Our meeting with the governor wasn’t going anywhere anyway.

April 8, 2015
by dawnkinster 17 Comments

A message to the Secretary

I woke up this morning thinking about my dad, probably because of an article I read yesterday. It’s so much like our own story, and the stories of thousands of other families.

Many of you know about my dad, but some of you are new readers. And as I haven’t had the opportunity to meet the new Secretary of Transportation, Anthony Fox, yet I thought I’d share my story in a letter to him.

Mr. Secretary:

My dad was driving to the Atlanta airport early in the morning of December 23rd, 2004. He was planning on spending the holiday with my sister in New Jersey because most of us couldn’t get home for Christmas that year. Mom had died unexpectedly in July and we didn’t want him to be alone.

On Interstate 85, just past the Georgia line, he came upon an accident. Police and other emergency vehicles were already there, lights flashing. Traffic slowed. There was a car behind Dad who saw, in their mirrors, the semi bearing down. They drove into the median to avoid the crash, but dad didn’t have a chance. He was driving 14 miles per hour when he was hit and pushed into the semi in front of him by a 80,000 pound vehicle that was on cruise control going 65 miles per hour.

Dad was partially ejected through the back passenger window even though he was wearing his seat belt. We saw the car, what was left of it, later that week when we went to the junk yard to retrieve his Christmas presents for my sister, still inside his luggage, in the crushed trunk. There was blood everywhere, but a particularly long wide stain running down the inside of the back seat door held my attention.

The image shocks you doesn’t it.

I don’t mince words any more Mr. Secretary, don’t shield people from the horror, especially not people who can do something constructive. It’s been ten years and I’ve had plenty of hand holding comfort. I don’t need more of that.

Four thousand people die in truck related crashes every year. Not all of them are the fault of the truck driver. But there are many tired and distracted semi drivers on the roads because the laws let them drive more hours than are safely possible and because many companies push their drivers to do even more. Most of these people die as individuals, in crashes that don’t gain press. They die one by one, two by two, across the country and no one pays attention.

Except the families. Sixty-three year old Walter Manz, who died this week in a crash that sounds just like my dad’s, won’t be remembered by the President or his Governor, or even his local Mayor. He won’t make the CNN news loop, his family won’t be interviewed by Anderson Cooper. He’s just one more person lost for no reason.

But his family will be forever changed.

So while we appreciate you meeting with us and listening to our stories here’s what we really need Mr. Secretary. We need more than warm support and kind words. We need more than hugs and tears.

We need you to stand up for safety.

Stand up and work with us to make the transportation industry safer for all of us. Not just the folks in the four wheel vehicles, but for the professional drivers as well. Because for every family that is devastated by the loss of loved ones there’s a driver that is emotionally devastated as well.

We can make a difference. We can make the roads safer. We just need everyone, and especially you Mr. Secretary, to work together toward a mutually satisfying compromise that will save lives. Make safety your legacy. Be remembered as the Secretary that put safety first.

Safety over profits. Has a sort of ring to it doesn’t it.

Thank you for listening.

Sincerely,

Dawn Badger King

Bill Badger’s daughter.

Forever.

Daddy and me

February 26, 2015
by dawnkinster 10 Comments

Amy, I wish I’d met you

Amy. Twenty-seven, pretty, interesting, artistic, and by the looks of pictures on her Facebook page and blog, always smiling. I hear she was getting married in May. I never met her, never read her blog or asked her to friend me on Facebook. She was the friend and fellow blogger of a blogger friend of mine. Social media certainly makes the world smaller, and yesterday evening when my friend posted a short piece about Amy leaving a hole in her heart, about how she would be missing her friend, I wondered, so I clicked the link to Amy’s blog. There was a recent post and nothing seemed amiss. That made me wonder more so I started searching for information on Amy and her city. I found a short, one paragraph article about a six vehicle pileup with one fatality. A female.

And I knew.

Today, almost exactly 24 hours after that crash I read an article that included parts of the initial police report. All six vehicles were being merged into the left lane by State Police because of an accident up ahead. Amy was driving third in line behind two SUVs. There was a pickup behind her and behind that vehicle were two semi trucks. Amy and the two vehicles ahead of her had moved over to the left lane and slowed. The pickup behind her was in the process of moving over and had slowed. The semi behind the pickup tried to move over but couldn’t slow down fast enough, and hit the pickup, spinning it into the median. The semi behind the semi involved in the first crash hit that first semi, then slammed into Amy’s car, spinning it, then rammed into it again, on the driver’s side door, bounced off of her car, and hit each of the two vehicles ahead of Amy, then ran up an embankment and hit the bridge.

How fast do you think that second semi had to have been going to hit the first semi, Amy’s car twice, two other cars and still make it up the embankment to strike the cement bridge? It was snowing yesterday afternoon, terrible weather they say. I’m sure the truck drivers will use the weather card while explaining the reason they couldn’t control their vehicles. But these are professional drivers. We expect more from them. They, of all drivers, should know that bad weather requires everyone, especially big heavy trucks, to slow down. If that second truck had been going slower he might have run into the back of the first semi, but would he have hit Amy twice?

Amy, just like my father who was killed in a crash almost identical, absent the snow, did nothing wrong. She successfully slowed and merged. She had nowhere to go. She was killed because someone else made a mistake. And it’s a mistake that is happening across this country every single day. Four thousand people die in crashes with commercial trucks every year. Yesterday Amy was one of them.

I thought about Amy all day today. And as I drove home into a sky going purple with evening I thought about her family, her boyfriend, the wedding that won’t be, the future that ended so abruptly, the art she won’t make, the children she won’t have. I didn’t realize I was crying for her until I tasted my tears.

I became involved with the Truck Safety Coalition when my dad was killed. We offer comfort and information to families who have suffered the unthinkable. I know right now Amy’s family is reeling with grief. Her friends are in shock. Her fiance is in a black hole. I know this is not the time they want to think about what they should be doing to preserve evidence, what they will need to fight for justice for Amy. But they need to know. I wish I could hold them all in a big hug and gently help them through these first horrible days, weeks, months. Years.

I might never get to do that. But I do want them to know that when I’m working on these issues, when I’m in DC talking to elected officials and agencies and reporters I’ll be holding Amy in my heart right next to my dad. Amy has given me one more reason not to give up.

Amy. I wish I had met you. But you can be sure that I’m not going to forget you. The work we do to advance safety on our roads is done to honor Amy and my dad, and all the others killed and injured in crashes with commercial trucks. We are their voices and we are not going away.

Rest in peace Amy. The world is a little less special without you.

I can see that. Even though I never met you.

December 9, 2014
by dawnkinster 10 Comments

We are here, we are here, we are HERE!

Revision note 12/10, 5:30 a.m.: Sadly Congress passed the Appropriations Bill last night while I slept. Complete with Senator Collins’ language to roll back truck safety. Read below and you’ll understand some of what the American people lost. It’s devastating.

How many of you remember the story by Dr. Seuss titled Horton Hears a Who? It’s the story of a whole world of people living on a spec of dust who must make a glorious and loud noise to prove their existence. That’s how I feel right now as those of us associated by tragedy to the Truck Safety Coalition fight to remove an amendment to the Appropriations Bill that will increase the allowable hours a professional driver can drive each week from 70 to 82 hours. The Appropriations Bill has to come up for a vote in the next couple of days and if the language is still included when that happens much of the work we’ve done over the past several years to require professional drivers to get adequate rest will be lost.

We are desperately trying to make enough noise to be heard.

I’ll try to keep this brief as I know during the holidays no one wants to spend a lot of time reading and thinking about things as serious as death and injury. As wrenching as grief. And most of your know my family’s story; dad was killed by a tired trucker on December 23, 2004. In two weeks it will be ten years. For nine of those years we’ve been fighting the battle, trying to get a safer Hours of Service Rule issued by the Department of Transportation. Finally, last year the new rule was mandated. It wasn’t everything we wanted. We wanted the maximum daily number of hours that a driver could drive to be reduced from 11 back to 10, and we lost that fight. But at least the new rule required drivers who had maxed out their weekly allowable hours of work to rest for two consecutive nights. The two nights of rest piece wasn’t just pulled out of a hat. There’s all sorts of scientific evidence that the human body needs certain kinds of rest in order to be fully functional, and two nights in a row helps to maintain the body’s rhythm.

As soon as the rule came out the American Trucking Associations attacked. And they helped Senator Collins from Maine to write the Collins amendment which would repeal this mandated two nights of rest. It’s basically the only step forward we’ve made in years of fighting, and this amendment would put us back to square one. It allows shippers and supervisors to once again push a driver to work up to 82 hours every week. That’s twice as many hours as you and I, or most Americans, work. And truck drivers don’t get paid overtime.

A recent poll showed that the majority of the American public is opposed to increasing truck driver hours. They know about the dangers of fatigued driving. The opposition to the legislative efforts to increase the allowable hours is across all demographic and political groups. If the majority of people oppose increased driving hours, then why is Congress so set on letting the two nights of rest be repealed?

Because the ATA financially supports their political campaigns.

And that’s why we absolutely need to make a louder noise. Right now. We need every Senator contacted tomorrow and again the next day if the vote on the Appropriations Bill hasn’t occurred. We need every Senator to know that we oppose the Collins Amendment being included in the bill. The Collins Amendment has nothing to do with appropriations and it has never been debated on the Senate floor. It was worked out in a closed door committee meeting and slipped into the bill as if it was a done deal.

Well it’s not done. Not yet anyway.

Please call your two Senators. Tell them you are against the Collins Amendment being in the bill. Tell them you want our roads to be safer and you expect them to stand up for safety rather than cave to expensive truck lobbyists who’s agenda is profit over safety. You can find your Senator’s phone #’s here. And if you’d like to read more, go to the Truck Safety Coalition website, or directly to a letter from two Senators who oppose the amendment. If you’d like to know more about Senator Collin’s motivation, read Joan Claybrook’s statement.

Please help.

This didn’t turn out to be the short, poetic heart-tugging blog I intended. But it’s so important and there’s no short way to explain what’s happening in Washington DC right this very moment. I can’t explain the politics of it any more than I can fully explain the grief of losing a family member suddenly, tragically, needlessly.

Please don’t think of this as my issue, my problem. The safety of our roads is everyone’s issue, everyone’s problem. It’s only by all of us banding together and making that glorious, loud noise that we will be noticed. Please help me make that noise. Make that noise as early as you can tomorrow. The Senate offices open at 9 a.m. Let’s make those phone lines sing. You can call later in the day too. Just please call.

The roads don’t belong to the ATA. They belong to all of us. And we deserve to garner as much attention as a paid lobbyist. We deserve to get more attention. We’re the ones that voted these Senators into their offices and they should be paying attention to us. We are here. We are here. We are HERE! Say it with me now. WE ARE HERE! And Senator Collins – we are not going away.

Thank you for your support. I miss you Dad.

November 15, 2014
by dawnkinster 14 Comments

FedEx and all of us

Photo credit Wyoming Tribune Eagle

In Wyoming last Saturday three innocent people died when a FedEx truck crossed the median and hit their minivan. While the initial story indicated two people in the van died, a subsequent article, which describes those killed as involved in their community, shared the sad news that a third person, the son of the woman, died as well.

Does this sound familiar?

I bet most of us have forgotten all about the crash last spring in California where a FedEx truck crossed the median and hit a tour bus filled with college students. At least ten were killed including both drivers. The NTSB still hasn’t issued a report telling us what caused that crash, though they shared a report earlier on the sequence of events. And at the time there were lots of heartbreaking stories about the individuals who were killed and injured and how they and their families were coping. When ten people are killed in a senseless crash in California it’s a big story. But still, we all forget as soon as the next big story comes along.

It’s inevitable.

Internet photo by Jeremy Lockett

So when only three people die in a remote state like Wyoming there’s little press. Not so much national coverage. It’s not headline news. And when one person dies here, another one there, over time and across 50 states, no one notices at all.

Except those of us that have been there.

And when it’s the same company that has killed innocents we sit up and take extra notice. FedEx warrants some of our attention, some research. I know people will say that it’s early and we don’t know the cause of this latest crash in Wyoming. That we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. But it has been proven that a driver involved in one crash, regardless of fault, has a bigger probability of being involved in another. Logically that is because a person involved in a crash, even one not their fault, may be a less observant driver, perhaps not as defensive, as someone paying more attention who might have been able to avert disaster given the same circumstances. I can extrapolate on this theory to assume that a company that has been involved in one fatal crash has a larger probability of being involved in another fatal crash, perhaps due to the culture of the organization.

What’s the culture at FedEx?

I’m not the only one wondering what’s going on. Turns out others are investigating their safety record. And included in the article are some numbers from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration comparing FedEx and other carriers. Notice the 3.8 crashes per 100 drivers for FedEx compared to 1.74 crashes per 100 drivers for UPS. Makes you wonder doesn’t it. And don’t you doubly wonder when you realize that FedEx is one of the large shippers lobbying hard to get longer and heavier trucks approved to travel on all our roads?

The holiday season is upon us. More and more packages will be shipped and companies like FedEx will be busier and under more stress to get your baubles and gifts shipped faster then ever. We all leave holiday shopping to the last minute. We all want instant gratification. We all want that next day delivery. And so we all contribute to the culture of pushing drivers to go faster and further just to make our dreams come true.

Let’s just stop.

Let’s shop locally. And early. Or send gift cards from your family’s favorite local store. Let’s not demand instant delivery. Let’s spend more time with our families and less time shopping. And while we’re doing that let’s remember the families and survivors of the crashes in California and Wyoming, and all the other crash victims we haven’t even heard about. Let’s remember that they are going to face their first holidays in what is their new normal. Let’s be thankful for what we have while we remember those we’ve lost. Let’s never stop working toward fixing this problem, investigating those responsible, and supporting those hurting. Let’s not forget. Ever.

And maybe, just maybe, let’s not use FedEx until they can understand that profit over safety is unsustainable.

October 16, 2014
by dawnkinster 14 Comments

The truth behind the trip

We enjoyed sharing our trip around Lake Michigan with you through photos here on this blog and on Facebook. It was a lot of fun exploring new places, revisiting places we used to work and live, spending a tiny bit of time with friends from long ago. Mostly it was good to get away and explore.

But that’s not the reason we went.

As most of you know I volunteer for the Truck Safety Coalition (TSC), a nonprofit group that works on safety issues surrounding commercial trucks. We work through Congress and the agencies of the Department of Transportation (DOT). Most of us have family members that were killed or injured in crashes with commercial trucks and those experiences inspire us to work hard to make our roads safer.

Last week members of my family and I, along with the Executive Director of TSC and a member of another family who has also been forever changed by a truck crash, spent the day at a huge trucking company learning about their safety procedures, their plans for future safety enhancements and their feelings about the issues we’ve been working on. They invited us to come visit their facilities and talk, to see which issues we agree on and what we might be able to work on together for the good of everyone – to make our roads safer.

Imagine that.

A giant in the industry invited us, a group of hurting, stubborn, sometimes angry individuals who have no ties to trucking except through tragedy, to sit at their table and talk with them. They listened to us, expressed concern and empathy, and then told us how they are approaching safety and answered our questions as we tried to familiarize ourselves with their side of the issues.

Unprecedented.

We won’t be able to agree on everything. These are complicated issues; electronic monitoring, rules about hours of service, minimum liability insurance increases, maximum size and weight challenges, even how drivers are paid. But the more we talk the better the odds are for positive change.

TSC has worked with Congress and made some advances. We’ve worked with the DOT and made some advances. And now we’re working with a part of the trucking industry. Maybe this is another front, an untapped resource. We’ve not anti-trucking as some would like to portray us. We remind people that truck drivers die too. We’re working for safer trucking, for the good of everyone.

As a group we need to explore every avenue to safety. I am glad we got the invitation, and I’m glad I went. I learned a lot. I saw compassion and humanity on the ‘other side’ and realized once again that we’re all in this together. I know that no one individual, no one group, no one truck company can make it all right.

But together we can make it better.

We do it one day, one rule, one law, one truck company at a time. We do it in honor of those we loved and lost, in honor of the hundreds of thousands of injured. In honor of all of them we work for change. This time change began in a meeting room of a large truck company and this change is good.

And that’s why we went. Miss you Dad.

June 27, 2014
by dawnkinster 9 Comments

Update on truck safety legislation

We received an update email from the Truck Safety Coalition. Part of it is below. I wanted you to know what is going on since you’ve supported me through this roller coaster that is safety legislation.

“As you know, on Thursday June 19, the Senate began consideration of the FY 2015 Transportation Housing and Urban Development (THUD) Appropriations bill as part of a package of three appropriations bills. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), filed an amendment to the THUD bill which would protect the Hours of Service (HOS) rules governing rest periods and the amount of hours truck drivers may work each week. Joining Senator Booker in cosponsoring the amendment were Senators John D. Rockefeller (D-WV), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Edward J. Markey (D-MA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Sherrod C. Brown (D-OH), Richard J. Durbin (D-IL), Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI), Brian E. Schatz (D-HI), and Chris S. Murphy (D-CT).

Senator Booker’s Amendment was introduced as a response to the language inserted into the bill at committee markup (Collins Amendment) which would increase the truck driver weekly work week to over 80 hours while a study was performed on the HOS restart provisions. The Booker Amendment would strip the Collins Amendment of its language to suspend the restart provisions, and prevent an increase in truck driver work hours, while preserving the study.

We have now learned that the THUD bill has been pulled from the Senate floor indefinitely due to unrelated issues on other legislation, and we need your support to ensure that when the THUD bill returns, if a vote is held, the Booker Amendment will have enough support to pass. It will likely be a very close vote. In addition, Senator Blunt (R-MO) has indicated that he may offer an amendment, identical to the Collins amendment, to the Senate Commerce Committee’s piece of the surface transportation authorization bill. Right now, we are unsure when the Commerce bill will come up for vote. But, as you can see, this dangerous anti-safety language will not be going away, and it is imperative that we keep the issue of truck driver fatigue in the media and public eye.”

This delay adds another wrinkle in the fight for safety. It’s difficult to keep our issue in front of the Senators for an extended time and the trucking interests have deep pockets and will be in the Senators’ ears constantly. I’ll keep you updated when I hear more. Meanwhile, if your Senator is listed above having cosponsored the Booker bill, please take a moment to call him or her and let them know you appreciate them trying to save lives on our roads.

And thank you very much for your support.

June 16, 2014
by dawnkinster 12 Comments

Safety update. And turtles

Who you lookin at?

Today was a busy day as volunteers, including some of you, made phone calls to Senators in Washington, asking them to consider safety before profits — to strike down the Collins Amendment that would gut the Hours of Service Rule just instituted last summer, and to watch out for amendments that would prohibit any attempt at raising trucking company’s minimum liability insurance requirements. And as the day went on some Senators stood up and voiced concern over trucking regulations. In particular there is now another amendment, the Booker-Menendez Amendment (both are Democratic Senators out of New Jersey) that would strike down the dangerous part of the Collins amendment; the part that would cause the hours truckers are allowed to work to increase back to 82 a week. The Booker-Menedez Amendment would allow a study of the ‘unintended effects of two consecutive nights off’ for drivers who work 70 hours or more a week but would not make changes in the rule until after that study was complete. Seems like a good compromise to me. I called my Senators again late this afternoon and asked them to cosponsor that amendment. We’ll see.

I’ll keep you posted. I truly appreciate all your support, in all its different manifestations, from calls to writing, to hugs, to concern. It’s all important. And the more you talk about it with friends the better chance we have of making our politicians understand the importance of not letting profits compromise safety.

Scoping the lay of the land.

Meanwhile. I came home to find a Blanding Turtle (no I didn’t know the name, but a friend on Facebook did!) in my driveway. You know those things can move pretty fast when they want to. By the time I got inside and hooked the dog up for a walk to the mailbox it was nowhere to be seen. But I knew where it was, under some shrubs along the edge of the driveway. Because Katie wanted to go over there really bad. But I wouldn’t let her and we high tailed it back inside. Almost instantly I noticed it had moved up to the garage and was looking around. I think she’s trying to decide where to lay eggs. I watched and took pictures through a tiny bit of beveled glass in the front door.

She walked all the way up the driveway, along the garage door, then back past the front porch and under the car. Who knows where she went after that, but there’s a lot of garden for her to choose from. Katie and I went out on the deck to watch and listen to the birds. I fell asleep until the frogs began to sing. It would be a good night to camp out but sheer exhaustion precludes me from lugging the tent out and setting it up. Plus tomorrow is another day.

I hope Capital Hill sees fit to make the right decisions tomorrow. I hope they aren’t like my wandering turtle, just exploring and looking and ending up headed right back where they came from. Or hiding under a metaphoric car.

Wandering off to look for better places.

I’ll let you know. For tonight I’m pulling my head into my shell and getting some shuteye.

Katie says night too.

But Mama, I don’t want to go to bed yet!

June 15, 2014
by dawnkinster 10 Comments

We need your help NOW. Please. For safety.

For those of you wanting to help make our highways safer, the time is now!

We have learned that the THUD bill in the Senate (THUD stands for Transportation Housing Urban Development) will go to the floor for a vote Tuesday. Between now and Tuesday we need to make a lot of noise. We need to get their attention. We need you to contact your two Senators, (you can find the names and contact information for them here) at their Washington office. There are two amendments that we need to push back for safety’s sake.

The first is the Collins amendment that would roll back the required restart rest periods for drivers. I talked about this in a previous post. This restart rest period happens when a driver gets to 70 hours in 8 days or 60 hours in 7 days. The rest period mandates 34 hours off and has to include two consecutive early morning periods between 1 and 5 a.m. That’s the part that the Collins amendment wants to withdraw and ‘study’ though there were a great number of studies done before the rule was instituted last summer.

Tell your Senator’s office that you don’t want tired truckers on the roads you share. Tell them 4000 people die and 100,000 are injured every year in crashes with commercial trucks. Tell them you’ve heard and seen too many stories about people stopped in traffic who were run over because the truck drivers were too tired to notice what was in front of them. Tell them you have a friend whose father was killed in just that way. Tell them they should leave the rule alone for the safety of all of us, including the truck drivers. Tell them to oppose the Collins amendment.

We also know that an amendment will be introduced that is similar to the Daines amendment that narrowly passed in the House last week. We don’t know yet who will introduce the amendment Monday but it will be trying to block any increase in the minimum insurance coverage required on truck carriers.

Remind your Senators that minimum levels of insurance for trucks is currently at $750,000 and has not been increased in over 30 years. Remind them that families who suffer terrible losses and injuries should not have to carry the financial burden of these crashes. Tragic crashes with multiple injuries and deaths happen every week and the truck company’s liability insurance has to cover everyone that was injured; in multiple injury crashes all the families have to share the insurance carried. $750,000 is not enough to cover the medical bills for even one person’s traumatic injuries. If the truck company can not afford insurance to cover their very real risk and responsibilities, then they can not afford to be in the business. Please ask your Senators to oppose any amendment that blocks any increase in minimum insurance requirement.

I know if you’re not actively involved in politics, and goodness knows I never was before all this, that it can be intimidating to contact a Senator’s office. You see them on TV. They often look imposing. You’re not sure you understand the issue fully. You’re afraid of being confronted. Relax. There are very nice people that answer the phone, and they want to hear what the people in their districts think about issues. Ask to speak to their Transportation Expert. You might get him or her, or you might end up in voice mail. Either way, express your opposition to these amendments to the THUD bill. If you have to leave that message with the initial person who answered the phone that’s OK too, that’s what they’re there for. It’s just important that your opinion is heard. If you are planning on writing your Senator about this issue, please do so today or early Monday so there is time for the office to gather the information. If you’re calling, please do so Monday so that the Senator has time to receive your opinion before the vote on Tuesday. All Senators provide phone numbers for their Washington office and their district office as well as an email contact in their webpages, and you’ll find their webpages at the link at the very beginning of this post.

I find it ironic that I’m desperately asking for help on Father’s Day, a day I’m trying to ignore. But I remind myself that Dad would be the first in line to voice his opposition to these amendments if he could. As would so many others taken too soon by a tired trucker. They don’t have a voice except through us. Every single family that has been through this wants to make a difference. But we can’t do it alone. We need all of you.

This is how I choose to celebrate and honor my Dad on Father’s Day.

I hope you join me.

Happy Father’s Dad Daddy.

June 11, 2014
by dawnkinster 13 Comments

Time to get angry

I was reading an editorial this morning before heading to work. It was talking about fatigued truck drivers and how the Collins amendment to the Senate Appropriations bill wanted to withdraw part of the new Hours of Service Rule, and how safety groups were opposing any such measure. There was a place for comments below the editorial, and one of those comments was from a truck driver who was upset about being regulated. He said he was a good driver, had driven for years, never had an accident and he didn’t think he should have to follow rules, or be tested for sleep apnea, or told when or how long he could drive. His comment was long and angry.

I thought about that comment as I headed off to work, driving my daily 40 minute commute in rush hour, truck infused traffic. At first I could see his point about not wanting to be told how to do his job; I don’t like it when I’m micromanaged myself. But then I got to thinking about the bigger picture. An industry that asks it’s drivers to work 70 or more hours in a workweek, an industry that allows it’s employees to drive up to 11 hours each day with only a 30 minute break, an industry that pays by the mile causing drivers to want to drive further and faster to make a decent living, that’s an industry that pushes employees beyond what’s safe in order to make a bigger profit. That’s an industry that will never self regulate and will always need rules and, yes, even micromanaging.

Four thousand people die in crashes with semi trucks each year. Another 100,000 are injured. There are debates about what percentage of these crashes are caused by the commercial vehicle. I’ve heard anywhere from 7% to 18%. Let’s say it’s only 7%. That would mean that about 280 people a year are killed by trucker error. And 7,000 people are injured. How many people are on a typical airliner? Three hundred? So if an airliner fell from the sky every year do you think it would be ignored? If 7000 people were injured while flying would we say that was just the cost of doing business? That sounds ludicrous doesn’t it. But that’s what’s happening in the trucking industry and we ignore it until it happens to our family.

As I’m thinking about this I’m stopped in traffic on the freeway, keeping one eye on the rear view mirror, like I’m sure my Dad did when he was stopped in traffic ten years ago, and I’m getting madder and madder about the whole thing. Our safety group has an amazing opportunity this week to gain attention for our issues, but it’s at the cost of a person’s life, people’s injuries. We need more people to understand what is happening and to join our cause. We need to make a bigger noise. And here’s what I’m thinking. You don’t have to wait until someone you love is killed or injured in a crash with a semi to join our group. Look around your dinner table tonight. Who there would you be willing to sacrifice in the name of commerce, the economy, trade, profits? No one. So don’t wait until you are forced to join the unhappy club of survivors after tragedy strikes. How about joining the cause now?

We’ll need you soon to call your Senator and/or House Representative and voice opposition to amendments that are being attached to large bills. The House just passed an amendment that will prohibit the DOT from raising the required minimum level of liability insurance, which stands today at $750,000, the same as when it was originally enacted decades ago. That amendment came out of the blue and was pushed through by people influenced by the American Trucking Association which says that making truck companies carry more insurance is unfair to independent truckers. What’s unfair is that the families of people injured in truck crashes often have to bear the brunt of the medical expenses because there’s not enough insurance to cover all the expenses. And earlier this week a Senate subcommittee approved the Collins amendment that would withdraw part of the Hours of Service Rule that calls for specific rest periods after a driver works 70 hours. That amendment will come up before the full Senate next week.

We need to educate our elected officials. The ATA is already there, talking in their ears, helping with their campaign finances. We’re just families without big budgets. All we have are voices, yours and ours, united in protest. We need to get angry. And then we need to get loud. Congress doesn’t do anything without an outpouring of public concern. An outpouring. So join the fight. Let’s get angry and then lets get moving. One person lost in a preventable crash it too much. We’re way beyond that and it’s got to stop.

How many of you remember the story of Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss? It took a lot of Whos in Whoville to be heard, to save their world. It’s the same here today. All of us together are stronger than any one of us protesting. Check out a few editorials about the current issues, and decide for yourself. Can you help our cause? Because it’s not really our cause….it’s yours as well.

Some people might call me the crazy truck lady. That’s OK – I’ve been called worse. And you could do a lot worse than spending a little time fighting to make our roads safer.

Thanks to all of your for your support. You are all wonderful.

Happy Fathers Day Dad.

Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

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