The accident in New Jersey

I suppose I should weigh in on the accident in New Jersey that was
allegedly the fault of a tired trucker. I am sure there will be calls to
restrict trucks even more than they are now in order to keep those big
dangerous things away from people. Reports are that the driver was
fatigued. It has been said that he had been awake for 24 hours prior to
the crash. It is possible. It is also possible that the driver of the
limousine was more at fault. It is also possible that it was unavoidable
by anyone involved.

I saw a comment concerning this incident, someone thought that the 70-82
hours a week that we drive is just insane. This person seems to think
that the maximum possible hours that are available for driving are
always used driving. I get a restart on my hours maybe once a month, at
the end of each day the hours that I either drove or spent otherwise on
duty from eight days prior are added to my clock. I very rarely end up
using every minute of that 70 hours during one week. As I write this, I
only have 6.5 hours left for driving. I must stop by around 7 pm central
time today because of another part of the rules that dictates how much I
can do in a day before shutting down for 10 hours. Most of the truckers
out here will follow the rules. Trucking is a very safe industry.

If the person who beleives we should cut back the hours we can drive
thought it through, they would realize that it would make the roads more
dangerous and more congested because we would need twice as many trucks
to deliver all the things that make the country go.

I feel that everyone who gets a driver's license should be required to
ride with a trucker for a week so they can understand just what it takes
to handle a truck. Maybe then, they would not complain about trucks in
the way and automatically blame the trucker in an accident.