Trucks on Cars

The accident was not important enough to make the front page, but as I sipped my breakfast tea in the quiet comfort of my den, I was shocked by the picture on page 7 of today’s Dallas Morning News. A group of firemen stood behind a pile of knee-high junk which until yesterday was a car. The headline said: “Truck-crash kills woman in Euless.” A sand truck hit her vehicle and rolled on it.

It happens again and again. Last week on I-35 in Dallas, a huge rock hauler rolled on top of a Toyota. A crane was called to lift the truck off the crushed car. Paramedics worked for over an hour to extract the driver. By a miracle, he survived with broken arms, legs, ribs, plus internal injuries.

Not all accidents involve fatalities or serious injuries, but, day after day as I make my morning tea, my kitchen radio reports traffic tied up around Dallas and its suburbs by accidents. Usually it involves an 18-wheeler. Sometimes the truck jack-knifes or rolls over, spilling its contents across six lanes, halting freeway traffic for hours. If a car is involved, the car loses, often with serious injuries to the passengers. The driver has even less chance than a two-stripe corporal in conflict with a bird colonel.

I go into my den, relax in the big rust-colored arm chair, and pick up the morning paper. I feel grateful that I am retired and don’t have to battle rush-hour traffic to go to work every day. But in the middle of the day I sometimes drive the expressways to the art museums in Dallas. Even at 11 o’clock in the morning, 18-wheelers terrify me.

Who has not had a close encounter with those monsters crowding our highways? The Kings of the Road are less like constitutional monarchs than all-powerful dictators. According to newspaper accounts, inexperienced drivers cause of some of the messiest rollovers. Are trucking companies trying to save money by using men for less pay than experienced drivers?

I suspect it is old-timers who honk their horns to force me to move out of their way when they want to change lanes. Men who, delayed by bad weather in the East, try to make up time as they haul tons of steel or other stuff from Boston to Los Angeles. Sleep-deprived truckers are a danger. On long-hauls, from Coast to Coast, drivers go days without sleep – and sometimes are so lead-eyed by the time they get to Dallas that they can’t keep in their lane. BOOM! Another car side-swiped or rear-ended.

Get monster trucks off our highways! Not only are they a hazard to automobiles, they also chew up the pavement. Plus, they use enormous amounts of fuel. Our importation of foreign oil would be cut dramatically if freight moved off highways and onto rails. Only one problem: As James Howard Kunstler says, “The United States has a railroad system that Bulgarians would be ashamed of.” Obama pledged to put people to work rebuilding our infrastructure. Let’s hope that includes billions for railroads.

Meanwhile, as always, I have a suggestion. Let’s give our highways to trucks from midnight to 6:00 a.m. Only 18-wheelers. Police and emergency vehicles excepted. If truckers had to lay over after a six-hour shift, they would not try to drive when they need pills to keep their eyes open. This plan would also keep drunks in cars from racing the expressways at 80 m.p.h. to kill themselves at 2 a.m. Also, men or women who think they are alert enough to drive from Dallas to L.A. non-stop would have to try it in the day time, when they can at least see the road ahead.

Day times, from 6:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. would be for cars and pickups. That would not stop the idiots who speed in and out, tailgating and changing lanes, cutting in front of slower drivers. Accidents would happen. Just maybe fewer.