Submitted by David Yokel on
People will make mistakes in their jobs. Maybe someone writes a typo. Maybe someone misses a deadline for a project. When someone is a truck driver, an on-the-job mistake can be deadly.
A new trucking safety law is an attempt to prevent the deadly mistake that too many truckers make. The traffic safety regulation requires more rest between driving shifts for truckers. More rest, authorities hope, will mean fewer truck accidents in South Carolina and the U.S. overall.
The lack of sleep and rest in general can make anyone, a truck driver, accountant or stay-at-home mom more apt to make a mistake. When a trucker is tired and makes a mistake, his errors take the form of erratic lane changes or rear-end collisions, for example. Driver fatigue is deadly, especially when a vehicle involved is an 18-wheeler.
To try to prevent truck wrecks, lawmakers now require drivers to have a longer rest period between shifts. Instead of having only one night's worth of time off, truck drivers now must be allowed and must take two nights' worth of rest. The hope is that a rested driver is a responsible driver.
A study of the impact of the trucking law suggests that more rest for drivers is, in fact, leading to safer driving. Future data that has more time to take into account will give a bigger, more persuasive picture regarding the law's impact on preventing truck accidents in the U.S.
Regulations are important to preventing truck wrecks, but people do violate regulations. If driver fatigue is to blame for a crash victim's injuries, a truck accidents attorney can help that victim determine his or her next best step toward justice.
Source: Huffington Post, "New Safety Rules For Truck Drivers Effectively Reduce Fatigue," Feb. 3, 2014