Ed Slattery on the Importance of Highway Safety Standards

Ed Slattery
Baltimore, Maryland

It was a beautifully clear day on August 16, 2010, when my family’s lives were changed forever by a truck driver who fell asleep at the wheel and rear-ended their car.

In an instant I lost my wife, Susan, and had two sons, Peter and Matthew, in emergency surgery. Following the impact with my family, the truck went on to hit two other semis and four more passenger vehicles before stopping in the divider and bursting into flames.

The weeks following the crash were spent juggling surgeries for both boys, meeting with doctors, lawyers and funeral directors, all while ensuring that someone was always at Peter’s and Matthew’s side. For a while, I spent each day wondering if Matthew would make it to the next.

After about a month, the boys were stable enough to return to Baltimore where we began a journey into our “new” life dealing with the long term effects of the crash including the loss of my wife Susan.

Peter, who suffered a broken pelvis and a facial fracture, was conscious and being moved to a helicopter when he overheard the paramedics pronounce his mom dead. He will recover physically, but the long term psychological effects are yet to be determined.

Matthew, who was in a coma from massive head trauma, is now conscious but permanently disabled and requires round-the-clock care.

Our lives will never be the same.

Since our crash, I’ve found we are not alone in suffering tremendous loss at the hands of a truck driver who fell asleep at the wheel. Truck driver fatigue is an industry-wide issue; 65% of truckers report that they are often or sometimes drowsy, and 48% admit that they have actually fallen asleep while driving during the previous year.

Currently, truck drivers are allowed to drive up to 11 consecutive hours, one hour longer than the previous Hours of Service (HOS) rule. This is in spite of the current HOS rule having been struck down twice in 2 separate, unanimous federal court cases brought by safety and labor groups. In each case, unanimous panels of the Federal Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. vacated the rule with scathing criticism of the agency rationale for increasing driving and working hours.

Studies show that truck crash risk increases exponentially after 8 consecutive hours of driving and the highest level of crash risk occurs during both the 10th and 11th hours of consecutive driving. Decreasing truck driver’s HOS by one hour would limit the time they are on the road during this period of highest crash risk.

Truck driver HOS must be regulated to reflect the results of scientific studies and not to cater to the financial desires of the trucking industry. While the trucking industry may claim that reducing the HOS to 10 consecutive hours would negatively impact their bottom line, it would also provide more than 2 billion dollars a year in crash cost savings and will create almost 40,000 new jobs for truck drivers.

Our lives will never be the same but I can work to reduce truck driver fatigue so that another family will not have to suffer the tremendous loss that my family lives with every single day. I urge President Obama, Members of Congress and Officials at the Department of Transportation to improve the HOS rule and protect the safety and well being of our families.

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Thanks to the Truck Safety Coalition for connecting us with Ed.