Rubbish Truck Accident on Rt 78

Did anyone notice the rubbish truck wipe out on Rt 78 by the GSP this morning? He went across 5 lanes of traffic to crash into the south side noise barrier. Evidentally the side of the truck fell off depositing rubbish all over the highway. These things are a hazzard on both Rts 78 and 80 - about every 3 trucks is a huge trash hauler these days, changing lanes, tailgating, and behaving like idiots. When are people (NIMBYs) going to learn that rail transportation will make highway travel safer and faster when these haulers are off the road!!!

...better not put that stuff on a train or else some NIMBY will put up a big stink!

As a railfan who's employed in trucking, I can tell you that the garbage haulers have the most unsafe, undermaintained equipment on the road. Almost daily, you can see these trucks lined up and being put out of service at the Pa. DOT safety check at the I 78 bridge from NJ into Pa. The owners of these trucks will hire ANYONE who can "drive" to operate their equipment, including fresh driving school graduates with NO experience......todays debacle on Rt. 78 being a perfect example of what an inexperience driver can do with a 40 ton tractor trailer. The drivers are all paid by the mile or per load, which means the faster they go, the more money they can make, no matter what the cost to others on the road. Hopefully, some of the NIMBYS who oppose rail tranport spent 2 or 3 hours sitting in the backup today.

Well, I hope most people agree that more shippers will be switching to train as the gas prices skyrocket to almost $3.00 a gallon this Summer.... Private Truckers will raise the shipping rates as the gas prices go up......


Steve

or else some NIMBY will put up a big stink

Funny how these selfsame NIMBYs say nothing when driving around the stinking municipal waste trucks on the highways, eh...? and in the summer, they are quite ripe.

When NYC closed Fresh Kills in 2001, most city trash began to be sent to landfills in the Midwest (Ohio and western Pennsylvania) and the South (Virginia, Carolinas). Most of the waste is sent out by trailer trucks, however there is one daily CSX train that picks up its load from the Oak Point transfer station in the South Bronx and send the loads to a Virginia landfill. In the future, more and more cities will have to resort to trucking or shipping their waste out by rail as landfills near major cities reach capacity and close.

I'm sorry about that accident. Well, that accident is nowhere near any areas without rail.

There is a severe driver shortage in the U.S. It's a combination of low birth rates in the years that has produced males in the age 20 - 35 range. Too, the better employment opportunities in other industries right now (people can be home on nights and weekends where that's tough in trucking).

There is a pecking order in terms of pay and desirability for drivers. They go first to UPS, then Yellow and Schnieder, then Roadway. Swift Transportation, the largest truckload company in the U.S. has finally gotten its annual driver turnover down to 116%. They are targeting 100% or 90% this year.

Yeah, the garbage haulers are at the bottom of the ladder. The thing that got me when I was on I-80 a lot from New Jersey to Central PA was to find medical waste strewn along the roadway. And at the time that was going from NY/NJ all the way to a special site in Minnesota. A few of those truckers were caught by the PA State Police backhauling meat to supermarket distribution centers in NJ.

That is an industry made up of over a hundred thousand companies. They come and go daily. The feew companies at the top are sound and socially responsible. But the vast majority are under such economic pressures that push them to the edge. And, the drivers are even less accountable.