How much truck safety is enough?

In a perfect world, every semi-truck or 18-wheeler on the road would be properly maintained, be properly loaded and driven by a well-rested and professionally trained driver.

In a perfect world, trucking companies would truly put safety first and would not roll the dice with truck safety, nor would they push drivers to drive while dangerously fatigued. But we do not live in a perfect world.

Are most truck properly maintained? Are most drivers properly trained, alert and generally good drivers?

Likely YES...and that's the problem.

"Most" may not be good enough. And if it's your family that is seriously injured because of a poorly trained driver, an overworked driver or a truck running on bald tires, then "most" is simply not good enough. So what is an acceptable percentage? 1%? 2%? 25%?

Imagine being stopped by a police officer who stops you because you ran a red light. You say, "that's great officer, but you need to know that I stopped correctly each of the last 20 times. " What do you think he or she would do? Write you a ticket or let you go? What should he do?

So the question about trucking corporation negligence recurs. How many faulty vehicles should we tolerate on the roads? How many drivers being forced to "make time" is an acceptable amount? And how many overloaded semi-trucks should be allowed to travel at high speeds?

This blog entry has been written to get our readers thinking about trucks, trucking accidents and the standards we might expect for the safety of our roads.

There are no "correct" answers...but we believe these are exactly the kinds of questions everyone who travels on our roads should be asking.