PR Newswire
Apr. 8
LABOR, LAW ENFORCEMENT, HEALTH AND SAFETY GROUPS, AND VICTIMS JOIN TO OPPOSE BIGGER AND HEAVIER TRUCKS
WHAT: |
NEWS CONFERENCE – Findings from a recent report, An Analysis of Truck Size and Weight Issues, Phase I – Safety will be released. Conducted at Marshall University by the Multimodal Transportation and Infrastructure Consortium (MTIC), a University Transportation Center recognized by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA), this report found a 15.5 percent higher fatal crash rate when double trailer trucks are involved in a crash compared to single trailer trucks, and a more than eight times higher fatal crash rate for trucks with six or more axles as compared to those with five axles.
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The report is being released at a critical time as Congress debates reauthorization of the multi-billion dollar bill that funds surface transportation programs. The last bill, MAP-21, required the U.S. DOT to conduct a Comprehensive Truck Size and Weight study to gather objective data on the impact of longer, heavier trucks on safety and the infrastructure. Safety groups have serious concerns about potential bias and data shortcuts in the conduct of the U.S. DOT study. | |
A broad coalition of law enforcement, labor, victims and health and safety groups will join with U.S. Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA) to oppose bigger, heavier trucks and reveal the problems plaguing the U.S. DOT study. If continued without changes, the U.S. DOT study will provide an inaccurate and unreliable assessment of safety and infrastructure that will negatively impact a balanced freight policy and endanger the safety of truck drivers and the public for decades to come. | |
WHEN: |
Wednesday, April 9, 2014 at 10 a.m. |
WHERE: |
Cannon House Office Building, Room 421 |
WHO: |
U.S. Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA) |
Jacqueline Gillan, President, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety (Emcee) | |
Georges Benjamin, MD Executive Director, American Public Health Association | |
Mark Burton (Knoxville, TN) Director, Transportation Economics for the Center for Transportation Research, University of Tennessee | |
Joan Claybrook, President Emeritus, Public Citizen and Former Administrator, NHTSA | |
Bruce Gower (Clyde, OH) Chief of Police | |
James P. Hoffa, General President, International Brotherhood of Teamsters | |
Jennifer Tierney (Kernersville, NC) Board Member, Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways, and Member, Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee - Her father was killed in 1983 in a truck crash in North Carolina. | |
BACKGROUND: |
Truck crash fatalities and injuries have increased three years in a row. The number of fatalities has increased by 16 percent since 2009 from 3,380 to 3,921. The annual number of injured has increased by 40 percent during this time, from 74,000 to 104,000. In fatal crashes involving a large truck and a passenger vehicle, 98 percent of the deaths occur to car occupants.
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Polls show a majority of the public does not want bigger trucks, nor do they want to pay for them. Overweight trucks accelerate the destruction of roads and bridges. One third of America's roads are in poor or mediocre condition and one fourth of our nation's bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. Increasing truck weights will make our roads more deadly and create an unfunded mandate of infrastructure repair and maintenance needs paid by taxpayers. |
More information is available at www.trucksafety.org.
Contact: Beth Weaver 301.814.4088 or beth_weaver@verizon.net
/PRNewswire -- April 8, 2014/
SOURCE Truck Safety Coalition