Driving Death

And so it begins.

I have been warning about the manufactured shortage of experienced truckers for some time now. I left the industry when all the new regulations started, but I know some who are still trying to make a living in the driver's seat. Condensed version: those trucks are dangerous, the freight can be dangerous, and it requires some expertise to safely operate them.

Not too far from me is the sleepy little town of Rainsville, Alabama. It is basically a crossroads that sprung up around two major highways that intersect: Alabama 75 and Alabama 35. Today, a semi hauling hazardous chemicals overturned at the main intersection, closing the entire town.
(That was the only pic I could find; apologies for the size. The full pic can be found at the source link)

RAINSVILLE, Ala. (WAFF) - A wreck involving an 18-wheeler caused a hazardous material spill on Highway 75 and Main Street in Rainsville on Thursday, according to the DeKalb County EMA.

It is recommended that people evacuate at least 1,000 feet from the area because there is a “threat to life.” Officers on the scene said the chemical is believed to be a peroxide used by farmers.

A Rainsville Police dispatcher said the truck was the only vehicle involved in the crash. The truck wrecked while trying to maneuver around construction. The driver sustained no injuries. Both Highway 35 and 75 remain fully closed indefinitely.

Now, I drove one of these things OTR for 8 years. The driver is at fault in this case; there is no scenario where the driver is not at fault. It does not matter that the road was under construction; the driver is required to safely maneuver through the construction zone or find another way around. If the driver becomes trapped where he cannot safely proceed, he stops the truck until a path can be cleared for him to safely proceed.

I've done that many times myself.

But the only way to turn a semi over like that is taking the turn too sharp and too fast, or running off the road. Either case is always the driver's fault. In this case, it appears so far that the driver went off the road into soft grass to avoid the construction cones and the ground could not support the vehicle. Worse, the truck appears in other news feeds to be straight; that means when it tipped, it was close to straight already. For that to happen, the driver had to drive an appreciable distance through the soft ground and would have felt the ground giving under him.

In addition, any driver hauling haz-mat materials must be trained in such and have that particular endorsement on their CDL.

In short, this was either a new driver or a very poor driver. An experienced, capable driver would never make such a rookie mistake. As a result, several businesses have now been evacuated; the evacuation zone extends for 1000 feet in each direction from the intersection.

The material is claimed be a peroxide used in agriculture. The mildest peroxide I am aware of is concentrated hydrogen peroxide. This is NOT the stuff you buy in the drug store for an antiseptic... here is the MSDS on concentrated hydrogen peroxide. It can be deadly and, if memory serves, is classified as an oxidizer and a corrosive.

If this can happen in the sleepy little town of Rainsville, it can happen anywhere... next to your work location, near your home, next to your children's school, just outside the restaurant where you are having a nice quiet meal... anywhere. It can also happen while you are right behind the truck, forcing you to abandon your vehicle.

Someone will want to know what happened to the driver. By all reports, he is OK. But he's also unemployed. Someone is going to get a multi-million dollar bill for the cleanup, and he is also going to get a hefty ticket with a hefty fine once the cleanup happens. I don't know if the ticket is issued yet, as the town hall is just down from that intersection and may itself be abandoned... but it will happen. The driver is out of a job; the driver is out of a career. He'll be lucky if he retains the right to drive a car; usually this will result in a complete license revokation. If anyone dies from this spill (and that is indeed quite possible), he will likely be looking at manslaughter charges.

This is what happens when you start over-regulating. You run the older, experienced operators out and have to fill in with fresh, unexperienced people. Forget COVID... maybe we should all be carrying gas masks in our vehicles and in our homes/offices. And don't forget, peroxides are not the only hazmat substances out there on the road... there are explosives, radioactives, and deadly poisons being hauled all around us every mile of every highway, every day.

Who's next?

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

It certainly is a sleepy town. Sad that this had to happen.

Automation would help reduce this on fixed routes. Eliminate the possibility of human error. The trucking industry is barreling towards it.

I agree that on complicated routes or when hauling hazardous materials, a degree of specialization, qualifications or certification is required.

a reply to: Axios

Automation would have made this even worse. This was also what i have been warning about concerning automation: the electronics has no way to identify the temporary route the vehicle is to take in a construction zone. Plus, the sensors could not "feel" the shift in the truck when it is entering soft ground to anywhere near the extent that an experienced driver can. This happened because the driver was a rookie and made an error. In an automated truck, it would be a guaranteed spill.

There are some things a computer simply cannot do.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

Yes, I agree with your post to a degree. Automation will be very tough to implement on dynamic routes.

This incident would have definitely been worse if current automation technology was used.

I do agree that there are just some things that automation is no substitute for experience in many situations. Though, I would argue that certain sensors will far exceed the human capability and improve road safety.

a reply to: TheRedneck

To say nothing of what an attacker can do to a platform like that, for example. Route modifications, random braking under load, or most likely a form of ransomware making the vehicle inoperable. While I do support process automation in a lot of cases, until the trucking industry is operating on a separate road/rail infrastructure (never), there is a human danger inherent in that process. Any process that is automated must have the human component removed or have a trained human component that is aware of the safety risks and mitigate them. Unfortunately, with the roads being what they are, there are tons of unknowns that any automated driving system cannot account for currently.

a reply to: TheRedneck

Speeding and texting drives me crazy to see other drivers doing either
one in a rig. I may check a message from dispatch but if I'm going
to respond I can afford a couple minutes to pull over. I don't even
use the Justin Bieber head sets. Drivers seem to get to comfortable
and lose respect for what that truck and trailer can do to a car load
of kids. My worst nightmare.

Truck driving is not for anyone, I hope the future brings intelligent, responsible and lawful drivers.
RIP

a reply to: Axios

Automation will be very tough to implement on dynamic routes.

That's the problem. All routes are potentially dynamic; there really is no way to predetermine accidents, construction zones, utility construction, maintenance, farm equipment presence, etc. I am told by some drivers that automated trucks are used out west now, but the terrain is completely different from the more populous areas (which require the most freight). The ground, unless there is a sudden downpour in the desert, is quite hard and stable, the roads are wider, and there is less cross traffic from side roads.

Driving I-70 through the plains is a breeze... you sit there and watch the hood eat white line and keep the wheel straight. But go into Jersey or off the big road in parts of Mississippi or Louisiana... and you just entered a whole new world of driving.

I would argue that certain sensors will far exceed the human capability and improve road safety.

The sensors may be able to exceed human ability but the sensing of the road was never the issue with accidents. The driver in this case had to know he was on soft dirt. The problem was that he remained on soft dirt until the vehicle turned over. That's not a sensor issue; it is a reaction issue. That's the weakness with automated vehicles as well. They may "know" what's going on, but they lack the intuition and experience to understand what to do in that situation. Along those same lines, a rookie driver doesn't fully comprehend what he should do to follow the first rule of truck driving ["Shiny Side Up") given the conditions he is experiencing.g

Not to mention, there are some things that sensors cannot sense. Have you ever been driving down the road and seen a vehicle waiting to pull out into traffic? 9 times out of 10 I can tell you what he's about to do before he does it. The way he stops, his posture in the car, the appearance of the car even, are all clues that are interpreted through years of driving experience and some kind of intuition I cannot fully explain. Sensors cannot do that. They can detect the car at a greater distance with greater accuracy, but what's the advantage in 100% over 99.99%? It becomes more important to have a feel for what the car is about to do than it is a concern over that one time out of 1000 that you might not see it as quickly.

Automation replaces a potential bad decision with a guaranteed bad decision in many cases, in exchange for fixing something that isn't broken to begin with.

TheRedneck

a reply to: Randyvine2

Speeding and texting drives me crazy to see other drivers doing either one in a rig.

If I had ever trained and caught any of my students texting while driving, that would be their last moments in a semi. I would flunk them on the spot, refuse to let them even sit in the driver's seat on the return trip, and refuse to ever let them in my truck again.

I cannot believe you have witnessed that! It's dangerous enough in a rolling speed bump... NEVER in a big truck!

Drivers seem to get to comfortable and lose respect for what that truck and trailer can do to a car load of kids. My worst nightmare.

Mine as well. I've heard so many older drivers say that, I think it is actually pretty close to universal. I once had a station wagon with kids in the back seat swoop in front of me and stop to tun into a parking lot, mere feet from my bumper! I hit the brakes so hard I not only rearranged everything in my bunk, but I unseated a 40,000 pound steel coil from the cradle that I was hauling. Snapped three chain ratchets... thank God it was loaded shotgun instead of suicide, or it might have wound up in the jump seat with me. As it was I had to rechain everything and crawl... 5 mph or lower... a few miles to a steel mill to have it reset on the cradle.

I'll never forget those little faces looking up at me while that damn brake light glared. I wanted to spend the next three days just beating on whoever was driving.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

Even driving out west where it's mostly flat. You can quickly find yourself going through mountains and foothills. There are many sharp curves, falling rocks, washouts, steep grades etc....

Also, that peroxide is definitely hazardous stuff. It is a preferred ingredient in many different kinds of homemade explosives. It's very versatile.

a reply to: TheRedneck

I'm never more than five mph over the speed limit in California or any state.
So when I gain on rig and see him swerving in his lane my first thought is
"Get off your phone". Then I pass and sure enough eyes bouncing up and down
phone in hand. Some of the wrecks I've seen you can tell the only way it could've
happened is texting. I'm not sharpest tool in the shed but any driver texting
down the road can't possibly be anything but stupid.

a reply to: TheRedneck

It can be very devastating even when hazmat isn’t involved…

This one was too close to home.

en.wikipedia.org...

“On April 6, 2018, sixteen people were killed and thirteen were injured when a northbound coach bus struck a westbound semi-trailer truck near Armley, Saskatchewan, Canada. The driver of the semi-trailer had failed to yield at a flashing stop sign at the intersection of Highways 35 and 335. The semi-trailer was travelling at a speed of approximately 100 km/h (60 mph). Most of the deceased and injured were players from the Humboldt Broncos“

“On July 6, 2018, the RCMP charged 29-year-old Jaskirat Singh Sidhu, the driver of the semi-trailer, with sixteen counts of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death and 13 counts of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing bodily injury. In early 2019, Sidhu pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to 8 years in prison. Sidhu, an immigrant from India, plans to appeal deportation from Canada if he is granted parole.”

Truckers need to be trained well and paid well. They offer an invaluable service that comes with a huge responsibility and personal liability to themselves and others.

As I have driven constantly throughout the southern US for almost 40 years, no way no how would I feel safe with computer-driven trucks. Too many variables too many hazards.

Truck drivers are some of the most skilled and underappreciated drivers on the road. Have seen many times where a car has cut off or swerved into an 18 wheeler and only once have I seen there be a wreck even that time the trucker locked it down and swerved missing the offending car and he wrecked his truck just because he ran out of shoulder, but he hit nobody else, and by all rights, the car should have been flattened, and probably more cars involved.

I don't think it will work on the interstates but I damn sure know it isn't gonna work in an urban or industrial setting till they get much more precise.

Put this way I almost feel totally opposite about autonomous flight which is likely safer with fewer potential hazards compared to autonomous trucking. So many hazards, I know definitely there shouldn't be autonomous hazardous material being shipped.

What happens when a truck breaks down and its lithium batteries start burning and it has chemical or flammable cargo?

What happens when it breaks down in a seedy part of town?

3plmagazine.tianet.org...

Opinion: The Big Lie? Why Driverless Trucks Won’t Happen in Your Lifetime
Tim Higham | AscendTMS

The likelihood of driverless trucks making a meaningful trucking impact in our lifetime is close to zero. That’s just this writer’s opinion. One could theorize that investor losses will be widespread and there will be few winners to speak of in the fallout of the driverless truck craze.

Quality Drivers Will Resign

The moment large carriers announce that driverless trucks are being introduced all self-respecting drivers will walk away.

Unions Will Protect Drivers

Love them or hate them, the driver unions will be the first to organize mass protests and strikes.

Government Regulations

A driverless truck still needs to meet all the requirements for weight, inspections, paperwork, and cargo handling that today’s trucks must abide by.

Issues on the Route

What happens when there is an issue on route? Who handles breakdowns? Changes a tire?

Driving Conditions Change Rapidly

Just think of the things that change on the road: rain storms, flooding, standing water, high winds, snow, ice, road debris, accidents, road work, detours, emergency vehicles, wild animals, children running into the street.

Any driver that’s ever navigated a loading or unloading facility can testify that they can be messy, cluttered, tight, difficult, unpredictable, and require a lot of human communication – by drivers. Who’s responsible for accident claims and how are they handled? The first time a driverless truck ends up in a devastating accident with fatalities, everybody from the government to the public masses will demand they are shut down until “all issues are resolved.”

Who will secure freight if it shifts during transport? Who will help load incompatibly sized or overweight freight? Who monitors and verifies reefer fuel, load temperatures, trailer brakes and lighting? Who verifies the reefer is running properly and knows what to do to save a load of produce if there’s an issue?

In-transit changes are common and must be expected. The pickup or delivery order may change, weather issues are common, and shipper or receiver changes of various kinds are common. Anyone who has been in this business for a New York minute knows that issues occur frequently, and often it’s an experienced driver that helps solve the issue or executes the orders handed out by dispatch, the shipper or the receiver.

Driverless trucks? Not in our lifetime.

furthermore.... they aren't even close to figuring out autonomous cars yet

thenextweb.com...

There’s no sign whatsoever (outside of the aforementioned Tesla gambit) that any vehicle manufacturer is approaching even a five year window towards the development of a consumer production vehicle rated to drive fully-autonomously.

And that’s a good indication that we’re at least a decade or more from seeing a consumer production vehicle made available to individual buyers that doesn’t have a steering wheel or means of manual control.

Driverless cars aren’t necessarily impossible. But there’s more to their development than just clever algorithms, brute-force computing, and computer vision.

According to the experts, it’ll take a different type of AI, a different approach altogether, a massive infrastructure endeavor or all three to move the field forward.

a reply to: putnam6

I see you brought up the Tesla problem. Their autodriving software may be banned soon in the USA.

techcrunch.com...

Also several countries have already banned the feature including Germany.

It is not working and not even close yet.


And about the paroxide, if it is strong, it can literally dissolve human flesh. They had that problem with the Me 163 Komet in WW2.

Accidents are up significantly after the roll out of the clot shots.

Think people only pass out when not in a vehicle?

I work at a bulk materials facility that loads a lot of trucks, we also get some of our stock delivered by truck. Cotton seed shows up in your standard 53 foot box trailer. Much of the time its long haul drivers pulling back loads, various companies, rarely see the same company name twice, even more rarely get repeat visits from drivers.

A lot of people when they think of truck drivers imagine a white guy wearing a flannel shirts, jeans, cowboy boots and a ball cap listening to country music.

Id say these day by my observation only about 5% fit this stereotype, and the other 95% are foreigners.
Mexicans mostly, quite a lot of eastern European, some india Indian. Very few of which speak any English at all. They have no ability to back up a rig. Just getting them to understand what you need them to do is an exercise in frustration.

The Mexicans like to drive with 2 to 5 of them in a truck, pooping and pissing through holes cut into the floor so they only have to stop for loads and fuel.

I have no idea how these people get a CDL to drive 80,000 pound rigs at highway speeds throughout our country. I definitely steer clear of big rigs on the highways

a reply to: Randyvine2

I've done a good bit of driving across the country and I've definitely seen an increase of aggressive and unsafe truck drivers over the last year or so.

I even saw trucks pulling 3 full sized trailers for the first time last year.

20 years ago an 18 year old kid got his first job grain hauling. He came down a steeply graded hill, tall bank on the passenger side, drop-off on the other. Claims his brakes failed, so road the truck all the way to the bottom, across an intersection, through a field and stopped only when the semi got caught on the railroad tracks.

He had nearly two miles to put it in the ditch, up against the bank. Instead, he ran over a gal just crossing the intersection in a little pickup truck. It took several hours to gather up all the mangled pieces.

I wonder what automation would have chosen in this instance.....

(Speed coming up to the grade was definitely a factor. I'm not a fan of de-regulating the CDL requirements to get more young, inexperienced solo drivers on the road....and this being farm related, regulations didn't apply anyway.)

a reply to: putnam6

I don't think it will work on the interstates but I damn sure know it isn't gonna work in an urban or industrial setting till they get much more precise.

I use cruise control set at sixty as I move freight up and down the I-5.
So the radar sensor applies the breaks as I approach traffic. I can be
cruising along far behind the traffic ahead. And just have a tumble weed
blow across the road in front of me at say 100 ft. That causes a computer
hard break that throws me forward in to the seat belt pretty damn hard.
It can happen on a slight curve as well with traffic in the lane next to me.
The first time that happened the surprise immediately turned to anger.
Now it's anticipated and cruise control is used only on the long stretches
so my speed is an even pace. Any way I imagine they'll throw out all the
regulations they've made drivers suffer to no avail. Just to try and put
this tech out there before they even come close to making autonomous
trucks safe. It just seems irresponsive to the regulations imposed on the
whole industry in retrospect.

a reply to: watchitburn

I even saw trucks pulling 3 full sized trailers for the first time last year.

Some states allow triples some only doubles. I'm fine driving my
53' foot dry van.

I feel if I can keep accidents at the most remote possibility that I do.
With the only close calls I've had, being the absolute negligence of
another driver totally f%#$ing up right in front of me. I always wonder
what circumstances could have caused a driver to become involved
when driving by an accident. Seeing so many aggressive drivers out
there is always a clue. Especially in the heavy traffic at top speed.
when I'm backing off cause it just doesn't feel safe. i guess the drivers
that fly by me in those cases are the ones I see jacked up on the side
with party lights oscillating ahead of creeping traffic.