Craig Fuller, CEO of FreightWaves, OpEd in the New York Times
Craig Fuller, CEO of FreightWaves , a colleague of Gord Magill’s and one of the sources quoted in End of the Road wrote a “scorcher” OpEd about the trucking industry.
The American trucking industry, which moves nearly three-quarters of the nation’s goods, has devolved into a dangerous, dysfunctional system that threatens every driver on the road, whether you’re in an 18-wheeler or the family S.U.V.
Consider a tragedy that took place on the Florida Turnpike last August. An inexperienced semi truck operator was accused of making a reckless, illegal U-turn, causing a minivan to slam into its side. Three people in the minivan — a 37-year-old woman, a 54-year-old man and the 30-year-old driver — were killed in the collision. (The driver has pleaded not guilty to multiple charges.)
Federal investigators later revealed that the truck driver, who had entered the country illegally, was issued a commercial driver’s license, or C.D.L., in California. A federal rule change, made in 2019 at the behest of the trucking industry, had allowed him to bypass the standard background and driving history checks required of Americans to obtain a C.D.L.
After the crash, regulators tested his English language proficiency and road sign recognition: He answered only two of 12 verbal questions correctly and identified just one of four signs, according to the Department of Transportation.
This wasn’t just a one-off error; it reflects a systemic failure that is killing thousands of ordinary motorists and their passengers. In 2023, 5,472 people died in crashes involving large trucks — a level of loss that would be unthinkable if it occurred in our skies.
The discrepancy in how we value human life based on the mode of transport is staggering. When the Boeing 737 Max crisis claimed 346 lives across two crashes, it triggered a global grounding of aircraft and brought the company to its knees. This was a necessary, indignant response to a failure of safety oversight.
We reach that same death toll on our interstates every 24 days — a 737 Max-scale catastrophe each month. We have allowed ourselves to become numb to carnage on our highways that we find intolerable in our skies…
