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The American Automobile Association
(Triple A) released the results of their foundation's study on fatal accidents
involving heavy trucks. The study shows that in 75% of fatal accidents
involving trucks and passenger vehicles, the automobile driver caused the
accident.
Why is this significant?
Over the last few decades social engineering groups, under
the guise of safety advocacy, have successfully beat up the trucking industry
resulting in burdensome regulations disguised as "Safety Regulations".
Still, more of these pseudo "Safety" regulations sit on the desks of
the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for future enactment.
The significance of this study is threefold:
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The study corroborates what folks in the industry and
other studies have been saying all along. The automobile driver is the
causal party in 3/4 of the fatal truck-automobile accidents.
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The study was undertaken by the AAA Foundation. The AAA
Foundation is well respected in the area of highway safety. They are
considered an objective research organization without an axe to grind.
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The study takes away most of the ammunition used by the
advocacy groups which they used to sway public opinion and legislative
direction with regards to trucks. They have long characterized trucks as
"killer trucks" and commercial drivers as tired, drugged and incompetent.
What Does This Mean?
Contrary to what these groups will be telling the general
public and Congress, this is hopefully good news. Instead of trying to politically
improve truck safety, maybe now we can actually work to improve it. Think about
these points:
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Maybe regulations can be written that actually save
lives. After all, the bottom-line of what's being done is to save lives.
Politically motivated regulations have not saved a single life and have
focused the industry's attention on regulatory compliance instead of safety.
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Maybe bad, ineffective or just downright ridiculous
regulations will be removed. This would free-up a huge amount of the nations
resources to focus on highway safety rather than on regulatory compliance
and enforcement.
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Maybe for the first time the greatest stakeholder in
truck-automobile safety will be included in the safety effort. The
automobile driver.... Without targeting and including the automobile driver
we have little chance for success in this important effort.
The results of this study don't give the trucking industry a
free pass to disregard safety. However, if the industry and the government are
smart, they will use this opportunity to move forward on a productive safety
agenda. If they do, we'll all benefit.
Undertaking this study took some political guts for the AAA.
The objective information gained from it will benefit our entire society.
Thanks AAA... Job well done.
For the full AAA Foundation Report.. Click here http://www.aaafoundation.org/pdf/cartruck.pdf
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