A 70-year-old trucker was traveling westbound on I-196 near Grandville, MI, driving a semitrailer hauling pastries when his truck crossed the center line and collided with a 2007 Chevy Tahoe8. The truck flipped over the edge of an overpass elevated and both vehicles caught fire.
Motorists who stopped at the scene and Grandville police officers helped remove 82-year-old Robert Gortner from the Tahoe. But his wife, a passenger, was trapped in the vehicle and Robert Osborne, 70, was trapped in his truck. Edna Gortner, 83, of Grand Rapids and Osborn of Macelona, were both killed. An elderly passenger in the Tahoe was killed along with the truck driver. That was in September 2009.
About a year earlier, in July 2008, a 71-year-old truck driver on I-75 in Michigan crashed into vehicles in the southbound lanes, killing 19-year-old Kara Joan Larivee of Rochester Hills. The 71-year-old driver, already speeding, did not react quickly enough to the fact that traffic had stopped due to merging traffic.
The common denominator of both tragedies is that no accident should have occurred, no one should have died, and both truckers were 70 years of age or older.
As a personal liability attorney who has grieved with clients for needless deaths resulting from car and truck accidents, I have argued in the past that truck-related deaths can be reduced by paying more attention to highway safety and driver fatigue. driver. In recent months I have become convinced that the effort must now involve a three-pronged approach: safer roads, less driver fatigue, and a mandatory retirement age for truck drivers.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration reports that as many as 4,000 Americans are killed each year in collisions with trucks that have involved thousands of safety violations, such as defective brakes, bad tires, or loads dangerously overweight. Many of the truck drivers involved had little or no training, many were 65 years of age or older, and many others had histories of alcohol and drug abuse.
Because Michigan does not allow punitive damages against truckers, in effect, all truckers have immunity from being held liable. For that reason, truckers who cause tragic accidents will continue to drive even when untrained, will continue to drive under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and will continue to drive when age impairs their reflexes and judgment.
Trucking accidents occur due to fatigue, road design flaws, faulty equipment, and driver error. Some causes are predictable; others are not. However, the result is always predictable: the shear volume of a truck traveling 40 mph or faster will always create havoc.
The biggest killer on our roads is fatigue. Federal transportation officials need to come up with stricter guidelines to make sure logbooks are kept properly and commercial carriers make sure their drivers get the rest they need between trips.
US state highway departments must adopt an aggressive program to widen two-lane highways in all areas to make high-speed travel safer for everyone. Law enforcement officials need to police our roadways to enforce speed limits rather than tolerate drivers traveling 80 mph or higher.
I became an advocate for reforms to reduce the number of car-truck collisions after representing the family of a 5-year-old boy who was killed when a semi truck rear-ended a vehicle driven by his mother.
The minimal reforms I advocated then were: construction of paving to widen our two-lane highways or at least provide more left-turn lanes increased speed enforcement on two-lane highways stricter enforcement of driving time limits of truck drivers can prevent fatalities.
I now add to my call for reform the need to lower the maximum driving age for all truckers to 65. Since we cannot predict with certainty the age at which a driver’s physical and mental reactions begin to decline, then 65 becomes the best standard because at that age, the driver can collect Social Security and Medicare in addition to any retirement benefit or 401k investments.
Age 65 is also the mandatory retirement age for airline pilots thanks to a bill signed in February 2007 that raises the mandatory retirement age to 65. Going back to the 1960s, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) forced airline pilots to retire at age 60.
Think about it. A pilot flies his plane outdoors, with no other aircraft in sight, is assisted by a co-pilot a seat away and a controller on the ground, and often flies on autopilot. Yet even with this redundancy and backup help, the FAA said for more than half a decade that it was not safe for a pilot over 60 to continue on the job. He now considers himself insecure at 65 years old.
So why do we allow truckers to continue driving at 65, 70, 75, even 80 years old? Truck drivers at high speeds every day must make split-second decisions that require extraordinarily fast reaction times. Common sense, if not physical exams, eye and hearing tests, and stress tests, tells us that a 65-70 year old driver is not physically or mentally prepared for this challenge.
If a truck driver makes a mistake, it is very difficult to correct due to the mass and size of the truck. Most truckers are good drivers who drive defensively and are qualified and trained to be good drivers. But just one driver mistake in a lifetime of driving can have tragic results. And as that driver nears the end of his or her driving career, the odds of a fatal error occurring increase dramatically.
I cannot rest in peace because I know for a fact that before the year is out someone else will die unnecessarily somewhere on a highway. I am certain of this because federal officials, state and county governments, and law enforcement will not take any action beyond the civil and criminal sentences on record. None of us should be at peace until certain steps are taken. And these actions are: widen our two-lane highways; add left turn lanes as needed; stricter enforcement to ensure log books reflect actual driving time and rest time; and establish mandatory retirement for truckers at age 65.
Join me in this campaign by writing letters to the Federal Transportation Agency, your state governor, and newspaper and television publishers. Greater public awareness will result in the changes that are needed to save thousands of lives. What we say does matter and will count for change.
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