Washington, D.C. (Nov. 21, 2024) – The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) has set the dates for next year’s Human Trafficking Awareness Initiative (HTAI) for each of its three member countries. In the U.S., the initiative is scheduled for Jan. 13-17, 2025. Canada’s HTAI dates are Feb. 17-21, 2025. And in Mexico, HTAI is set for March 17-21, 2025.
CVSA’s annual five-day human trafficking awareness, outreach, identification and prevention initiative educates commercial motor vehicle drivers, motor carriers, law enforcement officers and the general public about the crime of human trafficking, the signs to look for and what to do if you suspect someone is being trafficked.
According to the United Nations, human trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of people through force, fraud or deception with the aim of exploiting them for profit. Men, women and children of all ages and from all backgrounds can become victims of this crime, which occurs in every region of the world, including North America. Human traffickers often use violence, fraudulent employment agencies and fake promises of education and job opportunities to trick and coerce their victims.
In preparation for the initiative, CVSA is offering human trafficking awareness resources to its membership and working with TAT (formerly Truckers Against Trafficking) to distribute wallet cards, posters and window decals. Fill out our online form to order complimentary outreach materials.
During the five-day awareness initiative in each country, CVSA jurisdictions will conduct human trafficking awareness and outreach efforts and report those projects to the Alliance. The results will be released in summer 2025.
To find out what your jurisdiction is doing to increase human trafficking awareness, contact the agency/department responsible for overseeing commercial motor vehicle safety within your state, province or territory.
HTAI is part of CVSA’s Human Trafficking Prevention Program. The program seeks to reduce human trafficking throughout North America through coordinated enforcement and investigative and educational awareness measures within the commercial motor vehicle industry.
Jason Cannon
Chronic stress can lead to long-term health issues, and approximately 65% of U.S. workers surveyed by the American Psychological Organization characterized their jobs as a very significant or somewhat significant source of stress. Research conducted by the World Health Organization found that 83% of U.S. workers suffer from work-related stress.
Despite having chosen life on the open road as a way to avoid the office grind, and in spite of the remote nature of their work, truck drivers are not immune to workplace stress.
“All jobs have stress. Try trucking, where everything you do is stressful,” said OTR leased driver Greg Bazluki. “Why? Any action can get you fired or killed.”
CCJ earlier this year, in partnership with video safety and video telematics provider Lytx, surveyed company drivers and leased owner operators as part of its 2024 What Drivers Want report. When asked to rank their daily stress level on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being not stressful at all and 10 being constantly stressed, the average rating among all participants was 5.1. Bazluki rated his daily stress level a 6.
CCJ also polled its audience of fleet managers and asked them how they thought drivers would rate their average daily stress on the same scale, and those results show that managers believe drivers are more stressed than they actually report to be: 18% pegged driver stress levels at 10, yet only 3% of our driver respondents put their stress level at 10.
Stress, regardless of its severity, can lead to any number of physical and mental ailments, and many of the drivers we surveyed noted suffering from hypertension/high blood pressure (42%), depression (21%), anxiety (22%), and obesity and stress-induced weight-gain (22% and 11%, respectively.)
“The job has only gotten more stressful since deregulation.”
David Higgins, leased owner operator
“As I’ve gotten older the stress of the job is taken more of a toll,” noted 66-year-old leased driver Larry Maples, who added finding parking was his biggest problem as a driver not related to his employer.
And he’s not alone. Parking is the No. 2 concern for truck drivers industry-wide, according to the American Transportation Research Institute.
“Parking is a nightmare,” said 20-plus-year company driver Gary Fulkerson. “Finding a place to park at night is a big concern.”
Indeed, the top two headaches listed by drivers in our survey are things other industries likely consider mundane: finding parking (46%) and delays from traffic congestion (31%).
Parking, or lack of it
Cities are increasingly rolling out bans on roadside parking for drivers running out of drive time, and already limited free private parking options are increasingly being converted to paid spaces.
“More and more places are telling us not to park. Cities are banning truck parking yet still expecting us to make deliveries. Customers are still not giving us access to bathrooms, [and] the ones that do are installing nasty portable restrooms,” said company driver Charles Bolin. “Fleets allow their customers to mistreat drivers. When cities discuss parking bans fleets don’t band together to push back or refuse deliveries to cities that mistreat us. Fleets won’t pay for parking and parking is no longer free at most places.”
With a daily stress level he rated a 10, Curtis Mills said he came off the road and found a job making the same money because he was tired of dealing with problems that had little to do with getting loads from point A to B.
“I’m home every night, don’t have to worry about my safety, where I’m going to park – because I can’t stay on-site – and fight for or pay for a spot when they already overcharge us anyway, and now we pay for parking,” he said. “Make the government and anyone else who feels the need to make all these [rules and regulations] come ride in a truck and see what it’s like and what we go through out on the road… The trucking industry sucks now. It’s not what it used to be.”
Many driver respondents to our survey see industry regulations as an enabler of the parking crisis because they force drivers to stop when their clock runs out versus having the flexibility to stop when (or if) they find a safe place or the driver is tired.
“All the stupid regs would make anyone stressed out.”
Keith DuBois, company driver
“ELDs force us to park. I know when I am tired, and a 30 minute break slows down the shipment,” said leased owner operator Jim Ohlrogge. “Again, I know when I am tired.”
Leased regional driver Steven Rice listed “ELD’s interference in how I drive” as his top problem not related to his employer, adding “Things are really dumb in this industry. ELD telling you to sleep when it’s not needed, or to take a break.”
Traffic and other drivers on the road
The calendar year 2020 was a challenge for most people, but not all pandemic-spurred issues were universally bad. Freight rates were sky high and, thanks to lockdown orders, freeways were mostly empty. The new work-from-home economy, and the halting of many road construction projects, made for more seamless trips from shipper to receiver. The post-pandemic norm, however, saw traffic come roaring back, and despite a now more remote workforce, truck drivers routinely say conditions have gotten worse.
“I have personally seen a woman driving on a divided four-lane, eating a bowl of spaghetti with a tablet on her dash, driving with one knee and cutting in and out of traffic,” recalled leased operator Mike Bartick. “DOT should target the [people messing] around on their phones in cars and pickups. I see it 10 times a day every day.”
For drivers paid by the mile or paid a flat percentage, sitting in traffic is a problem with many prongs. It burns fuel, increasing cost per mile; it burns valuable drive time, decreasing the amount of time a driver can drive in a given period; and it could mean the load misses its delivery window, practically ensuring detention at the receiver.
“Drivers undergo a lot of stress everyday, especially when your primary running area is east of the Mississippi,” said long-haul company driver Tim Hay. “I liked running west. Less traffic jams equal less stress and easier running. Bigger towns mean heavier traffic. Everyone is in a hurry. The local people drive that road every day but they’ll still stay in that left lane until they get right up on their exit then just shoot across three lanes of traffic to get off most of the time without even looking. They just expect you to stop on a dime and let them over.”
Sage words
Trucking is an industry with a high average age – 46 years old, according to the American Trucking Associations – and there’s wisdom to be had from those who have filled up more than their share of log books.
LTL company driver James Duff, whose logged more than 20 years behind the wheel, said he’s learned to cope by focusing on the things that are within his control.
“You can’t control the actions or reactions of other people, only your own reactions to them,” he said. “Deescalate and de-stress when possible. Often times people are not mad at you, you just happen to be there. Likewise, act professional and understand that you can’t control a shipper or consignee and getting angry at them will not help the situation.”
“Every day is different. Every load is different,” added company driver Floyd Crise, himself a veteran trucker of more than two decades. “Treat it that way and you’ll reduce a lot of your stress, and remember to drive like your family is driving next to you.”
For the fleet managers worried about how stressed their drivers are, Victor Farinas, a relatively new leased owner operator with less than five years in the business, offered a tip: “Creating those relationships with drivers and their support staff will create a sense of belonging, and regular predictable pay will reduce driver stress.”
Five Rest Areas Will Get 183 New Spaces
Christian Metzger
MIDDLETOWN, Conn. — The Connecticut Department of Transportation announced a $31 million investment in expanding truck parking at rest stops across Connecticut.
Rest areas in Middletown, Southington, Madison, Southbury and Vernon will get 183 new parking spaces, officials said.
Construction began in October at the Middletown Rest Area, located off I-91 near Exit 20. The $3.8 million project, which will add 11 truck parking spaces to the lot, is projected to be completed in September 2025.
The Middletown Rest Area was the first expansion site, as the state owns all the land necessary to begin the project. The other rest areas will see even more significant expansions, with upward of 40 additional parking spaces planned for Southington, and as many as 60 planned for Vernon. Currently, there are 420 truck parking spaces statewide. When the project is completed by the end of the decade, the state will have about 600, officials said.
The new parking areas will have improved drainage and lighting.
Trucking industry officials have pushed for the expansions, citing a shortage of parking spaces across the state. The shortage has led truckers to park alongside the shoulder of the highway, on off-ramps, or in residential areas, causing a potential hazard for truckers and other drivers, officials said.
“On average, drivers lose about an hour’s worth of their driving, an hour of service, trying to find parking,” said Motor Transport Association of Connecticut President John Blair. “They stop early. So obviously, that affects supply chain issues.”
“The truck parking shortage has plagued the trucking industry for decades, and the consequences of insufficient capacity are as wide-ranging as they are severe,” he said in a news release. “The scarcity of truck parking spaces across the country decreases safety for all highway users, exacerbates the industry’s longstanding workforce challenges, diminishes trucking productivity, and results in unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions. The effort here in Connecticut will undoubtedly make our roads safer.”
According to officials, truckers are required to drive for nine hours and take 10 hours to rest. Because of that, officials said, it is important to make areas secure and comfortable for drivers.
“We’ve seen the trends of truck traffic continue to grow in Connecticut since 2020 to now we have a lot more truck traffic than we did before the pandemic,” said CTDOT Commissioner Garrett Eucalitto. “I think our economy has shifted. People want things now; they order, and they want it delivered tomorrow. So there’s a lot of that on demand, and the industry has shifted, so we just see trucks all the time, and we’ve built out.”
The project is also a key investment for the state. Connecticut’s freight transportation system supports more than 451,000 jobs and produces $50.5 billion annually in gross regional product, officials said.
Author’s note; In the private sector we are providing 400+ spaces for an $8M investment, with secuity and numerous amenities. Contact me to learn more about how you can participate.
Following are two articles regarding the $100M verdict against Werner Enterprises. If you or one of your commercial trucks is involved in an accident, please engage help. Get someone you trust, and of course I am glad to help – JoelBeal@JBATelematics.com. No mater what you think about the facts of the case, preparedness is key.
Texas Supreme Court hears Werner’s controversial nuclear verdict case
Tyson Fisher
The Texas Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a controversial nuclear verdict case involving Werner Enterprises that has a wide range of stakeholders calling for tort reform.
On Tuesday, Dec. 3, attorneys for Werner, a truck driver and victims of a fatal crash stated their case in front of the Texas Supreme Court. Last year, the 14th Court of Appeals in Texas affirmed a lower court’s nine-figure verdict finding the trucking company and its driver liable for a 2014 crash.
Werner’s case has left trucking and legal stakeholders scratching their heads. Despite all the facts suggesting the truck driver did nothing wrong, plaintiffs’ attorneys convinced a jury otherwise. At the center of oral arguments on Tuesday was the level of duty a truck driver owes to motorists traveling on the other direction of a divided highway.
Attorneys also argued whether a legal doctrine known as the Admission Rule should be formally adopted in Texas. That rule could prevent a trucking company’s practices, policies and overarching operations and culture from being used in certain crash lawsuits.
2014 crash
The Texas Supreme Court case stems from a lawsuit filed by the family of Zachary Blake and Brianna Blake. Zachary, who was 7 years old, was killed in the crash with a Werner truck. Brianna, who was 12, was rendered a quadriplegic.
On Dec. 30, 2014, the Blakes were traveling east on Interstate 20 in Texas in a pickup truck driven by Zaragoza “Trey” Salinas. Weather conditions were icy at the time. Salinas lost control of the vehicle going 50-60 mph and careened across a grass median, entering the westbound lanes.
At this time, Shiraz Ali was driving a truck for Werner going west on I-20. He was driving below the speed limit when the pickup truck began to spin. Also present in the Werner truck was Jeff Ackerman, a Werner driver-trainer. According to the appellate brief, Ali reacted within half a second, hitting the brakes.
Even the Blakes’ expert witness conceded that Ali’s reaction was “very quick” and “appropriate to the conditions.”
In addition to Salinas making statements suggesting guilt and responsibility, a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper defended Ali’s actions. Trooper Villareal, a 17-year veteran who investigated the accident, concluded “this is truly an accident,” Ali “didn’t do anything wrong” and there was nothing Ali “could have done to avoid the collision.” A higher-ranking trooper who approved the report concurred.
More details of the crash can be found here.
Werner on the hook for more than $100M
During the trial, plaintiffs were allowed to present evidence that had no direct proximate effect on the crash in order to persuade the jury that Werner’s culture and policy had caused it.
This evidence included:
- Details about Werner’s training and supervision of Ali
- Werner’s lack of a “command center” for weather monitoring
- Werner’s handling of crash investigations
- Claims of Werner’s driving school director being unqualified
- Werner’s failure to require a CB radio
- Werner’s failure to require an outside temperature gauge
Werner argued, however, that this evidence had nothing to do with the crash in question and that relevant evidence insufficiently supported a finding of negligence.
In 2018, a jury found Werner 70% liable, Ali 14% liable and Salinas 16% liable. After calculating all damages, the jury award for the plaintiffs was in excess of $100 million. In May 2023, a state appellate court affirmed the ruling.
Duty of care
A question critical to the case in front of the Texas Supreme Court is where to draw the line when determining a truck driver’s duty of care to other road users.
Representing Werner and Ali, attorney Thomas Wright argued that drivers should not have to anticipate someone coming into their lane from the opposite side of an interstate with a 30-plus-foot median between them. Although motorists can foresee another vehicle encroaching into their lane in icy conditions when going the same direction, it is unreasonable to believe a car coming from the other direction is also foreseeable.
Wright conceded that a trucker owes a duty of care to react appropriately once a wayward vehicle enters his or her lane. In this case, both sides acknowledged that Ali reacted quickly and safely.
Representing the Blakes, attorney Darrin Walker argued that a cross-median crash was foreseeable considering the weather conditions. Supporting that argument, Walker pointed to the CDL manual, which states that drivers should slow down to about 15 mph during inclement weather. Ali was traveling at about 43 mph.
“The purpose of this rule is mainly to protect other motorists, because passenger vehicles are even more likely than an 18-wheeler to lose control on icy road conditions, and we don’t want an 18-wheeler going highway speeds on icy roads when another motorist loses control in front of it,” Walker said.
Admission rule
Werner is asking the Texas Supreme Court to adopt what is called the Admission Rule, which could determine the fate of nuclear verdicts like Werner’s.
The company has argued that since it accepted responsibility by admitting Ali was in the course and scope of employment, plaintiffs cannot pursue “derivative theories of negligence.” Under the Admission Rule, once an employer establishes liability, “evidence of the employer’s hiring, training or supervision practices becomes inadmissible as irrelevant and likely to prejudice the jury,” according to the law firm Lewis Brisbois.
In this case, the appellate and district courts rejected the Admission Rule by allowing a variety of evidence dealing with Werner’s companywide policies and training. This in turn allowed plaintiff attorneys to use a tactic known as reptile theory, which evokes emotions of fear and anger in jurors to encourage nuclear verdicts. As Lewis Brisbois put it, “This company was so terrible you should punish them, regardless of whether any of our evidence showed the company or its driver’s actions actually caused the subject crash.”
The Admission Rule has been adopted in several states. In Texas, courts are split on the rule, with some adopting it and others – like the 14th Court of Appeals – rejecting it.
Werner is asking the Texas Supreme Court to cement the Admission Rule into state legal precedent.
During oral arguments, Werner said that a trucker’s entire day is on trial. Rather than focusing on what a driver did immediately before and during a crash, juries are considering irrelevant information about the company.
(H3) What should have been a quick trial turned into a six-week circus dissecting every decision made by Werner.
“We wanted to make this case about everything except for the three-second accident sequence,” Wright said. “It was all about trying the company.”
Walker argued that the Admission Rule disincentivizes employers from training and supervising their employees. He said that the negligence of the employer and the negligence of the employee both contribute to an injury.
“I think it’s unfair to hide that from the jury and then foist liability that would ordinarily fall on the employer onto the untrained employee,” Walker said.
The following groups have filed amicus briefs in the case, all of them supporting Werner’s bid for the Texas Supreme Court to adopt the Admission Rule:
- Acuity Insurance
- American Trucking Associations
- Schneider National Carriers
- Texas Association of Defense Counsel
- Texas Civil Justice League
- Texans for Lawsuit Reform
- Texas Trucking Association
- Trucking Industry Defense Association
- U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Texas Supreme Court Hears Werner’s $100M Verdict Appeal
Attorneys Spar Over Jury Award in 2014 Fatal Accident
Eric Miller
Attorneys for Werner Enterprises have asked the Texas Supreme Court to reverse a $100 million verdict against the company in a case involving a fatal accident. The case centers on a 2014 crash in which a pickup truck crossed a median and struck a Werner truck traveling in the opposite direction on a snowy highway.
Werner has during trials in lower courts steadfastly maintained that its driver could not have avoided the crash and did not share any of the fault. However, a Texas jury in a 2018 trial was instructed that it could apply a “proximate cause” legal standard in the case. A proximate cause is defined as a partial cause that was a substantial factor in bringing about an injury, and without which such injury would not have occurred. The court ruled that there was sufficient evidence to support a finding that insufficient training and supervision for the Werner driver behind the wheel at the time “proximately caused the collision.” An appeals court upheld that ruling, prompting Werner to take its case to the state’s highest court.
In oral arguments on Dec. 3, Werner attorney Thomas Wright told the court that Werner driver Shiraz Ali could not have foreseen that a pickup truck would suddenly cross an icy divided highway and strike the carrier’s truck. He further argued that the appeals court deviated from legal precedent in upholding the lower court ruling, and “disregarded all the cases from the Texas state courts and around the country’s lower courts.” Wright added that the appeals court, “for the first time has held that a driver in his own lane under control of his vehicle is liable when somebody on the opposite side of an interstate highway loses control, spins out, crosses over a 30-foot median plus the shoulders, runs into the driver in his own lane with no time to react.”
Countering Wright’s stance, Supreme Court Justice Jane Bland asked, “Is it reasonably foreseeable that on an icy day that there may be lane intrusion by someone if not this exact scenario traveling across a highway median, but somewhat skidding and entering your lane?
Wright replied, “It’s certainly foreseeable somebody in the next lane could come into your lane, but you cannot realistically travel down the highway in any kind of weather if you have to anticipate that somebody without warning leave the interstate lane 30 feet across. That’s why they built the interstate highway system, to keep these cars separated. What’s the point of having an interstate?
Wright continued, “We believe that the plaintiff’s way to decide the case is to say he had no duty to people across the road. …If I thought that driving down the [divided] highway afraid that somebody would lose control, come across and hit me and it would be my fault, I might just stay home.”
Arguing on behalf of the plaintiffs in the case, attorney Darrin Walker suggested that the Werner driver should either have been “driving very slow or pulling over during icy conditions, and that at the time of the collision was driving too fast.”
“The road was like a skating rink,” Walker said. “It was covered in ice, cars were going off the road left and right, and there were two cross-median collisions in this case.” He acknowledged, however, that the Werner driver did not encounter those crashes.
“In some cases there may be some circumstances whereas a matter of law a cross-median collision is not foreseeable and the driver does not have to take any precautions,” Walker said, “but in this case the evidence was clear that a cross-median collision was foreseeable.”
The crash resulted in the death of 7-year-old Zachery Blake, catastrophic permanent injuries to 12-year-old Brianna Blake, significant injuries to 14-year-old Nathan Blake and the Blake children’s mother, Jennifer Blake.
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Werner objected to the 2018 jury’s finding that the driver and company were negligent, and also to the court judge’s decision to allow certain evidence in the case. Additionally, Werner objected to the jury’s award of future medical care expenses for the plaintiffs.
Werner maintained that at the time of the accident, Ali was “proceeding in his lane, in control of a Werner tractor-trailer and well below the speed limit, when the [plaintiff’s] vehicle suddenly careened into his path, leaving him no time to avoid a collision.”
Despite this, the lower court jury found both Werner and Ali liable and assessed the award, according to court documents.
Trucking industry groups have come forward to support Werner in legal briefs filed with the Texas Supreme Court. They include American Trucking Associations, the Texas Trucking Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Texas Civil Justice League.
“In recent years, trucking companies have faced a growing trend of so-called ‘nuclear verdicts’ in highway accident litigation — verdicts that are not only shockingly large, but which, like the verdict here, are fundamentally unfair in that they are untethered to the realities of the case,” ATA wrote in a brief filed with the high court last month.
Werner ranks No. 16 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest for-hire carriers in North America and No. 4 on the truckload/dedicated sector list. It also ranks No. 30 on the TT100 of the largest logistics companies in North America.
Bahar Gholipour
CHICAGO — The familiar tune of the Bee Gees song “Stayin’ Alive” has been used for medical training for quite a few years now: It has the right beat — not to mention, the perfect title — for providing CPR’s chest compressions at the right pace to revive a patient.
The 1977 hit song has a rhythm of 103 beats per minute (bpm), which is close to the recommended rate of at least 100 chest compressions per 60 seconds that should be delivered during CPR. Plus, the song is well known enough to be useful in teaching the general public to effectively perform the lifesaving maneuver.
In fact, the American Heart Association (AHA) officially recommends that if you see someone collapse, you should “call 9-1-1 and push hard and fast in the center of the chest to the beat of the classic disco song “Stayin’ Alive.” The AHA has gone as far as depicting the act in an educational music video featuring comedian and physician Ken Jeong.
But although the song seems to be the perfect soundtrack for CPR, it does have some drawbacks. Namely, it is an American song, so not everyone around the world is familiar with it. However, there are other songs with the right beat that might do just as well, according to researchers in Japan.
In a new study, Dr. Yoshihiro Yamahata, of Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, and his colleagues tried using new songs to instruct a group of newly hired nurses to perform CPR. The researchers presented their findings this week at the AHA meeting in Chicago.
“The quality of CPR is the key to [helping] the victim recover,” Yamahata said. “Our solution to master adequate CPR skills is to put the educational words on several famous songs with 112 bpm and 8 beats” per measure, he said.
Receiving high-quality CPR can double, or even triple, a person’s chance of surviving cardiac arrest outside the hospital, according to the AHA. For effective CPR, the AHA recommends delivering at least 100 chest compressions per minute, making each compression at least 2 inches (5 centimeters) deep and ensuring full “recoil,” meaning the chest wall returns to its original position between each compression.
