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Truck Driver Charged in Fatal Crash That Injured Tracy Morgan

Surprised fellow drrivers are passing such swift and harsh judgement..Walmart runs a tight ship, tighter than anyone else.. If you have a cellphone in the truck, it must be approved by the company to have it, and you cant use it while driving.

For you drivers who have never driven at nights, it is terrible, and at that time of the morning your body just wants to go to sleep..It is terrible. I usually pull over, but sometimes you try to push it, and something like this may happen.

It is a terrible thing to happen to a fellow driver.
 
CenturyClass said:
Surprised fellow drrivers are passing such swift and harsh judgement..Walmart runs a tight ship, tighter than anyone else.. If you have a cellphone in the truck, it must be approved by the company to have it, and you cant use it while driving.

For you drivers who have never driven at nights, it is terrible, and at that time of the morning your body just wants to go to sleep..It is terrible. I usually pull over, but sometimes you try to push it, and something like this may happen.

It is a terrible thing to happen to a fellow driver.
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i too worked nightly, up to the date of my injury. i worked from about 8 PM till 5 AM 5 nights a week.

yes, we that work those hours can get tired, and perhaps doze off a bit.

but, when we push it like you say, it doesn't make driving at night any better.

we get that half hour break, a good time for a quick power nap, if ever there was one.

that wally-world driver, and only according to the published reports thus far, hadn't any sleep in 24 hours.

none of us know why, none of us know if he was jacked up on caffeine, or sugar.

what we do know thus far, is he fell asleep behind the wheel, and killed someone.

why did he not take a power nap, why did he push it (if that is what he was doing), he must have had ample time for some sort of quick nap.

many times some of us got lucky, that we made it home after each shift.

many times, drivers never make it home.

this guy will now have nightmares he has to live with.

in the end....??

whatever happens to him, like getting fired, getting sued, not being able to find another job..??

he brought that all on himself....

he cannot blame dispatch, nor anyone else. he made the decision to drive on......death resulting.

i personally do not feel any sympathy for him, he made his decision, now he has to suffer the consequences, like me, you, or anyone else.....in any such situation.
 
I feel as though a big part of the problem is the incentive to overwork and for the companies to overwork the drivers. First and foremost the absence of overtime paid, and after eight would be best, gives all companies who are able to do it a big incentive to keep drivers working. Then the depressed wages for many drivers, particularly in the OTR operations forces them to cheat to make a living, meager as it is even when cheating. If the companies' incentives were geared more toward being human friendly it would solve a lot of problems in the trucking industry. It is a shame for that driver, Tracy Morgan and company and drivers in general as this accident is as widely publicized and sensationalized as one can be.
 
Kennesaw Kid said:
where did it say he was a WalMart driver? They run in regions...a Georgia driver would not be way up there to begin with....KK
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Wally used to run regions. That changed several years ago. Not to much 'out and back' from their home DC.
The trucks say WalMart Transportation no longer WalMart stores East etc......
Some guys are out 2 plus weeks.
At least that is what I have been told by their drivers
 
FLOUNDER said:
The prosecutor in the Tracy Morgan accident says the truck driver who caused the wreck hadn’t slept for more than 24 hours.

Have you ever driven drowsy? What do you do to avoid falling asleep at the wheel?
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Did he go 24 hrs without sleep...or did he just fail to do his logbook?
 
ABFer said:
I feel as though a big part of the problem is the incentive to overwork and for the companies to overwork the drivers. First and foremost the absence of overtime paid, and after eight would be best, gives all companies who are able to do it a big incentive to keep drivers working. Then the depressed wages for many drivers, particularly in the OTR operations forces them to cheat to make a living, meager as it is even when cheating. If the companies' incentives were geared more toward being human friendly it would solve a lot of problems in the trucking industry. It is a shame for that driver, Tracy Morgan and company and drivers in general as this accident is as widely publicized and sensationalized as one can be.
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sadly, all due to the ever revolving doors at the CDL Mills, cheaper labor in the OTR end will always be there. that will never end, the churning out of alleged drivers from those mills. as long as there will be a demand for cheap labor, the schools will exist.

the days of a great union are gone and all that there may be are the good unions, which may be a better place to work for sure, but try to get a job at one easily. i cannot even count all the teamster union run places nearby me, that folded up, and the somewhat lower quality unions took over. some do offer o/t after 8 hours, my former employer did that..then if memory serves me, just before i left, they wanted to change that to o/t after 40 hours...
 
othertrucker2001 said:
Did he go 24 hrs without sleep...or did he just fail to do his logbook?
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someone else said that wally world uses e-logs..??

i thought that once he logs back on, it accounts for his total time off..??

i'd highly suspect he "talked his mouth off" when he was grilled at the police station...???
 
sharpshooter said:
Only time it does, is in the eyes of the law..lol.
If this driver told them he hadn't slept in 24hrs, then I guess he decided to suffer the consequences of his actions, which is the honorable thing to do but, we'll never know if he confessed out of guilt, or stupidity, they won't report that.
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Maybe he just told the authorities what happen.
 
mud said:
Maybe he just told the authorities what happen.
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Maybe he fell asleep in orientation, where every trucking co tells drivers "never admit guilt" "don't say a word"?? He's pretty much on his own if he did talk. Walmart will help hang him, if that's the case, just to limit their liability.
 
sharpshooter said:
Maybe he fell asleep in orientation, where every trucking co tells drivers "never admit guilt" "don't say a word"?? He's pretty much on his own if he did talk. Walmart will help hang him, if that's the case, just to limit their liability.
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Only orientation I received from Roadway was, come in Sunday night at midnight, ready to work.
 
Walmart runs elogs.

Unless things have changed, in the eyes of many a wally driving job is considered the top of the driving food chain. I used to think LTL was, it isn't.Well maybe if you started 20 yrs ago. For the newtimers, it blows blows blows.

Those wally drivers make upwards of 70K, and you must have a minimum of 3 years spotless free record to even be considered for an interview.

We all must live with the consequences of our actions...roger that. But the media loves the sensational stories. All I am saying is wait till ALL the facts are laid out..Fatigue has been an industry problem for a long time due to the cents/mile = more money, it pushes drivers to run harder. Who knows if this reporter didn't look up the causes of alot of truck crashes and see that it is fatigue and assumed as much?

We've all at some point who work nights shortchanged the sleep and felt it driving at some point during the night. This is the internet so I cannot confirm or deny that this has ever happened to me.

Facts are stubborn things, and I will wait for them before casting the stones.
 
Triplex said:
That's how they did things in the last century. :hide:
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I remember when Maislin bought Gateway Transportation.
maislin_ford_lnt.jpg
 
mud said:
I remember when Maislin bought Gateway Transportation.
maislin_ford_lnt.jpg
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Sure do. I was there when it happened. Used to do meets with Cleveland guys at Milesburg, PA. I tried to get a Gateway tractor as often as I could since they had A/C where ours didn't.
 
CenturyClass said:
1) Who knows if this reporter didn't look up the causes of a lot of truck crashes and see that it is fatigue and assumed as much?

2) We've all at some point who work nights shortchanged the sleep and felt it driving at some point during the night. This is the internet so I cannot confirm or deny that this has ever happened to me.

3) Facts are stubborn things, and I will wait for them before casting the stones.
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1) from what is being reported, i'll say this much, that as of right now, no one is reporting on how many of those crashes were NOT the fault of the truck driver. (that fact seems somehow to have been buried.) they only seem fit to say that over 100,000 crashes last year, were truck involved....!!!

2) yes, and i alluded to perhaps dozing off a bit myself, i think it is called a "nano-sleep", or "micro-sleep"....???
i think we are all victims of that. it's what we do to stop it, either a power nap, or pull over, walk around the truck, or call it a night and shut down for a while.

3) facts...?? when the press get's a hold of a BIG story.....the facts, and ALL the facts that can vindicate a guilty person, get's buried away, as that makes not for a great news story....who want's to "watch film at 11" for a vindication story..???

i think that we as driver's know more than the press, and as such, we can pretty much "see" what happened, and are better judges than anyone else.

in the end, that wally-world driver will be toast (perhaps for a lifetime of ever driving again), wally-world will be paying out MILLIONS of dollars, and will have to import more items from other countries to make up for the loss.

and if anyone thinks that this will improve a driver's life by cutting the hours of driving back...it won't...what if the hours of driving get cut back to say....8 hours per day..???

think there isn't any pushing now..???
 
If the driver was legal and was doing everything by the book wal-mart will stand by the driver, including a legal defense. If the driver is found to be breaking some laws or company policy he will be alone in defense of any civil suit........know that!!!
 
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