The holidays come with fancy meals and gift-giving traditions, which cause increased risk while you are out on the road. In addition to drunk drivers and winter weather, there will also be more commercial traffic.
People ordering gifts directly to their houses forces the mobilization of an already-strained private delivery network. Delivery drivers may park their vehicles at unsafe places or conduct sudden maneuvers with little warning.
As if all of those delivery drivers weren’t concerning enough, there will likely also be more commercial vehicles out on the roads delivering items to retailers around the country. Those commercial trucks can also be a major source of holiday traffic risk.
Truckers on a deadline might ignore the Hours of Service rules
The federal government imposes strict limitations on when a commercial driver can get behind the wheel and how many hours they can legally drive. In emergencies, the government sometimes waives these rules. However, for the most part, the Hours of Service rules impose a strict limit on how long they can drive in one shift and how long they can drive over the course of seven days.
When the number of deliveries increases while weather conditions slow down traffic, truckers may have to drive longer to get the job done. Either individual drivers or their employers may intentionally violate the Hours of Service rules that limit how long a trucker can legally stay on the road. Fatigued drivers are more likely to cause a crash or to display delayed reaction times when traffic conditions change unexpectedly, which is why these limits exist in the first place.
Recognizing with the holidays come with increased risk for trucking crashes can you stay safer out on the road.
