[bobwaycott]

What rules are you referring to? Current regulations prohibit drivers from having > 14 hours on the clock, iirc. Ignoring any drivers—or the companies who employ them—who are overtly ignoring these rules and faking their log books to be active longer than 14 hours, there are mandatory 10-hour windows drivers must not be working. That 14 hours encompasses all activity—loading, unloading, weighing, weight redistribution, driving, etc. Driving time itself is capped at 11 hours of an allowed 14-hour workday. Newer trucks even have cameras in them to monitor drivers, as well as other systems that report violations and actively prevent the truck from being used in a way that violates regulations.

> Human truck drivers already have regular accidents due to fatigue.

Fatigue accounts for 13% of truck driver-caused accidents according to DOT[0]. Fatigue is coded twice as often for passenger vehicles as it is for commercial truck drivers.

Moreover, the rate of commercial rigs involved in accidents with passenger vehicles is quite low. The rate of single-vehicle accidents is also lower among commercial trucks. Commercial trucking continues to grow increasingly safer every year since we’ve been keeping track in the 70s[1].

[0]: https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/safety/research-and-analysis/large...

[1]: http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/large-trucks/fatalityfacts...

Maybe relevant disclaimer: my father is a truck driver and we regularly talk about this stuff. His experiences have led me to do a bit of research and study on the matter. I don’t work for or on anything trucking-related.

[dsnuh]

My father is a retired truck driver, it'd be great to curse at each other sometime. :)

My understanding is that the industry (and maybe this has changed or was not good anecdata to begin with) is rife with gaming of the regulations, which in my opinion are already grueling. A human being, no matter how accustomed they are to driving, should not be asked to sit and drive down long mundane stretches of road at a high degree of alertness for 11 hours per day, multiple days per week. I understand that the new time tracking systems will reduce the ability to game the system, but I feel the fact that regulators are calling for these devices and driver awareness monitoring devices should be an indication that maybe we can find a solution that doesn't involve a human.

[dsnuh]

Your evidence seems to contradict what you are saying. From your second link:

"A total of 3,986 people died in large truck crashes in 2016. Seventeen percent of these deaths were truck occupants, 66 percent were occupants of cars and other passenger vehicles, and 16 percent were pedestrians, bicyclists or motorcyclists. The number of people who died in large truck crashes was 27 percent higher in 2016 than in 2009, when it was the lowest it has been since the collection of fatal crash data began in 1975. The number of truck occupants who died was 47 percent higher than in 2009."

[bobwaycott]

You’re misreading the data presented. Yes, 2016 was worse than 2009, but it was far safer than ‘75 and the decades that followed. That other particular stat on fatalities is only looking at the fatality rates of truck drivers vs passenger car drivers in accidents that are between a passenger vehicle and a commercial rig—and is not a surprising rate considering one ought to expect a truck driver to have a higher likelihood of surviving such a crash compared to a passenger car occupant. When you look at the comparative rates among non-truck accidents and fatalities, truck drivers are far safer. If I correctly recall the data, the rate at which truck drivers are at fault for accidents with passenger cars is also lower than the reverse. When you look at the comparative rates of truck accidents vs passenger car accidents, non-commercial drivers continue to be the most dangerous drivers on the road, and there are vastly more of them putting others at risk.

[majewsky]

> The number of truck occupants who died was 47 percent higher (in 2016) than in 2009.

Do you have numbers for dead truck occupants per mile driven? It could be that this is due to truck traffic being lower overall during the 2008/2009 crisis.

[bobwaycott]

That data is in the link I shared. 2009 had more miles driven than 2016.