More than 616 business groups recently signed a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) urging them to use their positions to pass the Regulatory Accountability Act of 2017 (RAA). The RAA recently passed the House with a vote of 238-183. The Senate has failed to pass RAA on three previous occasions after House passage. Democrats hold enough seats in the Senate to filibuster the bill.
Big rig crashes kill nearly 4,000 Americans each year and injure more than 85,000. Since 2009, fatalities involving large trucks have increased 17 percent. Injuries have gone up 28 percent.
Given these numbers, you might expect Congress to be agitating for tighter controls on big rigs.
With the summer vacation season in full swing, millions of Americans are on the road – roads that they must share with some very large vehicles. Through its Share the Road program, the American Trucking Association is using professional truck drivers to let the public know what they can do to stay safe.
On a July afternoon in New Orleans last year, Philip Geeck was riding his bicycle in a marked bike lane on a busy street. Approaching an intersection, he came up alongside a tractor-trailer truck hauling a tank of chemicals.