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Trucking companies are responsible for their drivers. We conducted a survey recently in light of the violence in America. We asked truck drivers and trucking companies, what is your policy in situations like we are seeing. The situations we are speaking of are the protests the rioting in just about every town in the United States of America. With the death of George Floyd a black man from Minnesota there has been an uprising in the protests of bad police. The problem we are facing in the trucking industry is we have to still do our jobs in getting freight to Americas warehouses and stores. In doing so we are facing many problems with the protests. Truck drivers are facing mounted hurdles when it comes to routing for example. If the protests are large enough in a particular city, it makes it virtually impossible to safely deliver freight to that area. It is not only unsafe but it is also very difficult to maneuver through such cities. Recently a Fedex driver found himself in a situation where fear and the unknown was dropped in to the unsuspecting trucker. Out of fear the driver felt he had no other choice but to try and make an escape from the city when he perceived that he was in danger from rioters. The driver did not realize but he had caught a protester between his trailers and ultimately killing the man.

So what did the trucking companies say

We spoke to a few carriers and one in particular was in the Minneapolis area. The area where it all started. We asked the general manager at a midsized company what their policy is when it comes to one of their drivers in these situations. He said “We are ultimately responsible for the drivers well being”, he then explained that a trucking company is like “The traffic controller” at an airport. Just like the airplane that he is helping can not see everything around him and he relies on the controller to maneuver his plane in and our of tight areas safely, so is the same for the trucking company. A trucking company must be the eyes and ears of the driver. The carrier must know what they are sending their driver into. He said take the tank driver on the bridge for example. You know the one that the media tried to say “he tried to run over protesters”? He said the driver was making a delivery right around the corner and was unsuspecting. This driver in a sense should not have been in harms way. It is the job of the trucking company to know of imminent danger in the delivery areas. When the driver came around the corner he appeared to be very surprised at what he was seeing. Most likely became confused. This could have been avoided by the carrier canceling the load whether a business needed to or not. The drivers life is not worth taking a risk but he was still put there to make his delivery. Even if the driver volunteered to make that delivery, the company should have canceled the load until it was deemed a safe area for a trucker to make his delivery.

• https://patch.com/minnesota/southwestminneapolis/no-charges-beating-trucker-who-drove-through-protest-crowd
• https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/police-identify-man-killed-by-fedex-truck-saturday-morning-after-protesters-blocked-interstate/article_d0dce1b7-d6f3-5b3a-a8c6-7ca9590e26a9.html
• http://talkcdl.com/australian-trucker-gary-with-talkcdl/
• http://talkcdl.com/trucker-talks-about-his-rollover/
• http://talkcdl.com/trucker-drags-protester-to-death/
• http://talkcdl.com/http-talkcdl-com-neo-secret-trucker/
• http://talkcdl.com/neo-secret-trucker/
• http://talkcdl.com/d-o-t-gives-advice-to-truckers-d-o-t/

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