Georgia Injury Law Blog
TV Report Focuses on Poorly Trained Truck Drivers
Last week, respected journalist Dan Rather presented a report on the poor quality of truck drivers emerging from the several CDL mills around the country on his weekly HD Net program.
The episode underscored what Georgia trucking accident lawyers have known for years – that the quality of truck drivers is a major contributing factor to accidents. Trucking companies often use questionable hiring practices. While a company is required to hire drivers only after checking his records, and verifying his training and skills, we know that doesn’t always happen.
Most truckers happen to be experienced, well trained and competent drivers who take pride in what they do and do it well. However for many truckers, trucking is the last choice of profession. Rather, in the episode titled Queen of the Road, focuses on how dubious truck driver training schools across the country are churning out thousands of poorly trained drivers, who then take up employment at any trucking company that will have them. These drivers have zilch experience as tractor trailer drivers.
Rather introduces us to Desiree Wood, a single mom who took to trucking as a way out of a rough patch in her life. According to Wood, she attended a trucking school in Miami, and before she actually began driving a tractor trailer rig, had very little practical training driving one of these massive rigs. Rather also spoke to a former employee at another truck driver school in Oklahoma City, who confirmed what Atlanta truck accident attorneys know – there are thousands of less than qualified and trained drivers being sent out on the streets. Those numbers, according to Rather’s report, are only getting bigger as the recession forces men and women into jobs they are barely trained for.
Not surprisingly, the trucking industry has not lost time hitting back at Rather’s report, which it calls, biased. Representatives for trucking industry insist that the industry is getting safer every year. However, the fact is that every year, an estimated 5,000 people die in tractor trailer accidents nationwide. Those figures may not have increased over the past few years, but they haven’t gotten any lower either.
Unscrupulous practices in the trucking industry have been open knowledge to Georgia truck accident lawyers and truck safety groups for a while now. The practice of manipulating log books goes on openly and unashamedly, and in spite of regulations, impromptu checks on big rigs continue to reveal shocking maintenance defects that pose a serious hazard to the trucker and motorist.