Believing they finally have an ally in the White House, surviving family members of truck and 18-wheeler accident victims are pushing President Joe Biden to impose stricter regulations on trucking companies and their drivers.
Because the new president also experienced crushing loss in connection with an 18-wheeler crash, the group is optimistic that his administration will be more receptive to their pleas than his predecessor had been.
Advocates for Truck Accident Victims Hopeful “Biden will be the One.”
In 1972, a tractor-trailer accident claimed the life of Biden’s first wife and young daughter. His two young sons were injured but ultimately survived the tragedy.
“We’re hopeful that . . . Biden will be the one,” Daphne Izer, whose son Jeffrey was among four teenagers killed on the Maine Turnpike in 1993 by a fatigued Walmart truck driver, recently told The Boston Globe.
Izer is among a group of surviving family members who wrote to Biden last month requesting that he tighten safety rules. The signees, who together lost 28 loved ones to a truck or 18-wheeler crash, believe that lax federal oversight contributed to their family members’ deaths.
Truck and 18-Wheeler Crashes Killed Over 5,000 People in 2020
The number of truck accident deaths have been rising steadily in recent years, and more than 5,000 people were killed in connection with a truck or 18-wheeler crash last year alone. Nevertheless, the Trump administration maintained close ties with the trucking industry and weakened or abandoned several key safety regulations, including rules intended to prevent fatigue-related accidents.
Last August, the Boston Globe reported that federal trucking regulations are riddled with loopholes. Among other things, its investigation found that approximately 20% of the more than 4 million commercial trucks overseen by the government should be taken out of service due to their state of disrepair.
“The public is being massacred on the highways by big trucks, and it’s unnecessary,” Joan B. Claybrook, former head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and president emeritus of Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group.
20,000 Truck Accident Deaths in 4 Years without Improved Oversight
According to the families, the Department of Transportation has not advanced a single major safety regulation in the past four years. They also predicted that the nation could see another 20,000 truck crash deaths and more than 600,000 injuries by the end of Biden’s first term if federal oversight is not improved.
Their letter asks the new president to appoint leaders free of industry ties and corporate influence to head the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. The families also demanded that the Biden administration require automatic emergency braking as standard equipment on new trucks, stronger guards to prevent smaller vehicles from sliding below big rigs during a crash, and speed limiters.
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