Drivers must be familiar with the vehicle inspection rules. Being bullied into driving an unsafe vehicle could cost you your licence, or your life.
Another tragic tale of improper vehicle maintenance and company mismanagement has drawn to a close. A driver is dead, and his supervisor will spend the next five years in jail. That’s a grim price for bad decision making. While the facts of the case speak for themselves, there’s a bigger question here: why did the situation unfold as it did?
The incident centered around the supervisor’s insistence that a questionable steering tire on a dump truck was fit to drive. The driver insisted it was not. The following day, the driver drove the truck with the questionable tire. The tire blew, causing the truck to veer off the road and crash into ditch, killing the driver.
CTV news provided comprehensive coverage of the trial. You can read more about the details of the incident here.
This scenario plays out probably hundreds of times every day across Canada and in the U.S. but with maybe less dramatic outcomes. A driver out on the road discovers a defect during the daily inspection and alerts the company to the problem. But citing the time, cost, and/or inconvenience of having the defect repaired, someone at the company defers the problem until the truck returns to the yard.
There’s a huge gap here, and it has existed since I started driving back in the late ’70s. Maybe even before.
It hasn’t been satisfactorily dealt with yet.
Most Canadian jurisdictions now use National Safety Code Standard 13, which allows for the notation of ‘Minor Defects’ on the inspection report. The presence of a minor defect will not automatically sideline the truck, unlike the notation of a major defect.
NCS 13, Part 1, Section 13 notes, vehicles are not to be operated with major defect: “No motor carrier shall permit a person and no person shall drive a commercial vehicle on a highway when a major defect is present on the vehicle.”
That makes it pretty clear that a driver is not to operate a truck with a major defect, nor is the carrier allowed to require the driver to do so. In the case in question here, court records show the tire involved was damaged in such a way as to constitute a major defect.
We’re better off than American drivers, whose vehicle inspection rules do not distinguish between major and minor defects. 49 CFR 396.11. Driver vehicle inspection reports, subsection (3) Corrective Action, states, “(i) Prior to requiring or permitting a driver to operate a vehicle, every motor carrier or its agent shall repair any defect or deficiency listed on the driver vehicle inspection report which would be likely to affect the safety of operation of the vehicle.”
It’s no wonder so few American drivers report defects on their inspection reports. The only thing worse than having a defect discovered by a roadside inspector is having a note in the DVIR (driver vehicle inspection report) acknowledging the presence of the defect while continuing to operate the truck.
What’s a driver to do?
The gap I referred to earlier is what happens when a driver discovers a defect during an inspection.
In a perfect world, the driver would notify the carrier, who would then source a mobile repair service to correct the defect. How often do you think that happens?
The preferred options seem to be, as I noted earlier, ‘We’ll fix the problem when the truck is back in the yard. Or, maybe, can you drive it to a repair shop?’
This obviously puts the driver in a difficult position, and depending on the nature of the defect, in a position of potential liability if a crash were to occur enroute to the repair shop.
I was indirectly involved in a situation some years back when a truck I had driven a day earlier was involved in a fatal collision. I had noted on the DVIR at the end of my shift that the truck’s brakes were pulling to the right.
In fairness, brakes pulling to the right isn’t, on the surface, a mission-critical problem. However, it turned out to be just that for the driver who took that truck out the following morning.
During his shift, he was confronted with a car running a red light right in front of him. Unfortunately, he was unable to stop and T-boned the car, killing the driver.
The truck was put through a forensic examination at the behest of the plaintiff’s attorneys, which revealed contaminated brake linings on the left front wheel. This, the lawyers argued, impaired the truck’s ability to stop properly. Never mind that nothing would have prevented that collision from occurring, the lawyers succeeded in hanging a portion of the responsibility for that crash around the company’s and driver’s necks.
Never drive unsafe equipment
The law is pretty clear on each party’s responsibilities when it comes to maintaining equipment and repairing major defects. And not requiring drivers to operate unsafe equipment.
But in the case of the dump truck driver at the heart of this story, why he went to work that day remains a mystery. His reasons for continuing to drive the truck he had argued about a day earlier never came out in the media.
I’m speculating here, just so we’re clear, but I think there might have been at least two factors at play. He might have been unaware of regulations in place to protect him from doing unsafe work, or he might have been worried about being fired — or at the very least, sitting home unpaid for a couple of days as punishment for making a fuss about the tire.
And, still speculating, I wonder if he was familiar enough with the rules regarding defective equipment that he could have determined with certainty the truck was unsafe to drive?
I dare say, this applies to drivers generally, but I worry particularly about drivers who earn their CDL at one of those discount driving schools that teach students only how to pass the test.
Would one of those drivers know if it was okay to drive a truck with, say, a broken spring? Or whether a bit of free play in a steering wheel renders a truck undrivable.
I can think of a dozen edge cases where a defect might be major or minor but requires some analysis on the driver’s part. If the driver is unfamiliar with the regulations, and the boss says ‘Go ahead and drive it,’ is the driver aware of the potential career- or life-altering consequences that could accrue from making the wrong decision?
Drivers kept in dark
I don’t want to generalize here, as I know there are many good and professional motor carriers who take this stuff very seriously. But I’ll wager there are many many more who are quite happy to keep their drivers in the dark on their rights and obligations.
And there are few if any incentives in place today designed to encourage drivers to report defective equipment, especially if doing so means losing time and money while awaiting repairs. I’d argue there are real disincentives for drivers to be honest about the condition of their equipment.
Regardless of what drove him to do it, that dump truck driver must have known driving that truck was courting disaster.
As for that driver I once worked with who chose to ignore the write-up I provided about the brakes pulling to the right, nothing worse happened to him except he was dragged through a long and onerous trial that eventually found the company 25% responsible for that crash.
I don’t think he was misinformed or unfamiliar with the risk of a minor brake issue, I think he was simply complacent.
He didn’t do everything possible to protect his own interests that day because it would have delayed his trip.
Drivers, you have responsibilities for the condition of the truck you drive. If you’re unsure if you should be driving it, don’t. You might be fired for it, which is wrong, but at the end of the day, how good a company would that have been to be working for anyway.
Don’t take chances with your licence. Or your life.
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