The column was written by former ATA executive Howard Abramson, whose main duties consisted of running Transport Topics magazine. Abramson wrote in the piece, which also included a cartoon cabover tractor as a skull, that Congress needs to “stop coddling” the trucking industry or highway safety will continue to be jeopardized.
Overdrive blogger Wendy Parker posted a response to the column Monday, pointing to the ridiculous nature of Abramson’s piece. Click here to read it.
ATA writes in its response that the NYT column is riddled with debunked stats and talking points, along with statements that are “simply and totally wrong.”
For starters, ATA says, the NYT fails to differentiate between a truck-involved crash and a truck-caused crash, which implies “the trucking industry is responsible for all [the] deaths” in fatal crashes in which a truck is involved. “This simply isn’t true,” the group writes. “Per the most recent federal data available, upwards of two-thirds of all serious crashes involving large trucks are caused by the actions of someone other than the professional driver.”
Other falsehoods in Abramsom’s column, says ATA, include: (a) the trucking industry is resistant to safety systems like airbags, stability control systems and anti-lock brakes and (b) trucks are disproportionately represented in crashes. DOT data “makes it clear,” ATA says, that “trucks are underrepresented in crashes” relative to the amount of miles driven.
Abramson’s points on hours-of-service rules also are “almost exactly the opposite” of what actually has occurred, ATA says. Abramson wrote that Congress last year removed the requirement that a driver “take a two-day break each week.”
