I had an interesting conversation with an irate semi-truck driver yesterday. He saw the Bachus & Schanker ad on TV and was “all fired up”. He let me know in no uncertain terms how offended he was by our ad.
What made my conversation with this irate semi-truck driver even more interesting was I had just received an email about the Association of Interstate Trucking Lawyers of America, a national association of dedicated plaintiff lawyers (no defense lawyers allowed) who have joined together to help eliminate unsafe and illegal interstate trucking practices across America. I was actually visiting their web site when I took his phone call. Talk about coincidence.
Here are some of the highlights of our conversation.
Irate Semi-Truck Driver: “Most truckers are good guys, just trying to feed their families”
Me: I agree.
Irate Semi-Truck Driver: “A lot of the accidents are caused by careless drivers in cars”
Me: I agree
Irate Semi-Truck Driver: “Most truckers are safe drivers and obey the regulations”
Me: I agree.
Irate Semi-Truck Driver: “The trucking companies don’t make it easy for us to make a living:
Me: I agree.
You can see the direction of our conversation. As I talked about in my previous blog about semi-truckers who falsify their logs, our focus is not on the drivers who are the good guys, the semi-truck drivers who are safe, conscientious drivers. Our target iare the individuals who try to cheat the system, those who put money over the safety of those they share the highway with. Additionally, we want the trucking companies who make business decisions based on money rather than safety to be held accountable. The trucking companies who offer monetary incentives to their drivers to meet deadlines to be held accountable when one of those drivers kills someone with one of their 80,000 pound weapon on wheels.
According to AITLA, “each year nearly 5,000 men, women and children are killed on America’s highways in crashes with big trucks. These grim facts are not acceptable. In spite of strong evidence that toughening rules on unsafe interstate trucking companies would reduce deaths and crashes, increases in the allowable hours of service for truck drivers have been passed into law, and too often safety laws are violated for profit driven, greedy motives.”
When it comes down to it on the highways, let’s face it, my 4,000 pound car doesn’t stand a chance against their 80,000 pound behemoth. We need all the help we can get.
