We in the industry are sometimes irked when we see inaccurate or incomplete stories about trucking in the general news media.
It’s especially galling in television news, whose reporters lack the time or desire to dig deeply enough into a topic. I know that TV news people too often are shallow minded because I was one of ‘em many years ago.
Happily, here’s an exception: a story on the on-going controversy over trailer underride guards. Reporter Kara Kenney WRTV-6 in Indianapolis did a story for the station’s website that was complete and well balanced.
She got all sides – grieving survivors of underride accidents, safety advocates and the industry, through the American Trucking Associations.
Click here to read Kenney's article: http://www.theindychannel.com/news/call-6-investigators/truck-safety-coalition-tackles-underride-issue-on-capitol-hill
We at HDT and TruckingInfo.com covered this topic recently,
and I personally have written about it since the early 1980s, when flimsy “ICC bumpers” were the rule and non-industry people wanted them improved.
Of course I see the industry’s side of the issue of rear-impact guards, as they’re now more properly known. Objections to stronger, energy absorbing guards usually center on cost.
But this issue is something personal with me. I’ll get into that next week.
