February
5, 2014
Motorists
share the road with large trucks every day, and yet most don't realize just how
dangerous these vehicles can be. Thousands die every year in accidents
involving trucks, and according to an investigative report by ABC
Chicago, truck accidents are on the rise. The most unsettling aspect of
this statistic is that when a passenger vehicle is involved in a truck crash,
the occupants of the passenger vehicles are far more likely to be killed or
injured.
Speed
is often a factor in fatal truck crashes. Crash reconstruction
expert Tom Green says speed is so often a factor in deadly crashes that
trucking companies have begun to use electronic speed limiters (also known as
governors) on their trucks. These governors keep the truck below a designated
safe speed. But it now appears that truck drivers are finding ways to
deactivate these governors, potentially putting lives in danger.
A
product called the "Safety Pass Pro," manufactured by Fast Truck
Enterprises, is advertised as a "totally undetectable" way of
bypassing governors, allowing truck drivers to get where they are going in less
time. "Anytime someone uses some device or some type of method to bypass a
safety feature everyone should be concerned about that," says Green.
To
make matters worse for motorists, ABC Chicago's investigation found instances
of truck drivers creating two sets of log books detailing how many hours they
have been behind the wheel. One log book, for their trucking company, indicates
how long and how far they have actually driven. The other log book, for federal
investigators, has a fake set of miles and hours behind the wheel. Truckers are
federally mandated to only be behind the wheel for a certain number of hours
per day and per week, with mandatory rest periods worked into their schedules.
These fake log book, known to truckers on social media as "comic
books," are used as a smokescreen to get around federal hours of service
requirements.
Last
Monday, a trucker plowed into a police car and another truck in Illinois,
killing an Illinois Tollway worker and critically injuring an Illinois State
Trooper. In a subsequent investigation, authorities charged truck driver Renato
Velasquez with providing fake records to cover up the amount of time he had
been behind the wheel prior to the accident. Velasquez, it turns out, had been
behind the wheel for 38 straight hours.
Speed
and exhaustion are a deadly combination when it comes to large trucks. With the
rise of new technology to bypass governors, the trickery of keeping fake log
books, and the newly imposed speed limit increase in Illinois, it unfortunately, looks like fatal crashes will continue to
occur.
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