Thursday ‘share the road’ trio

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Updated May 22, 2015

“We get our wives, kids, our pets, and we pack and load up the car headed for Orlando or somewhere. … Then we drive 75 or 80 miles per hour the whole way, with everything in the world that’s important to us in that car. And when we get there, we brag about how we made the trip in only 10 hours. It doesn’t make any sense.” –Greg Dotson of Peak Technical Institute, via the Maryville, Tenn., Daily Times.

highway uphillThe Times of Maryville, Tenn., featured this linked story based on a wide-ranging look at on-highway safety with Peak Technical Institute big-truck driving instructor Greg Dotson, who took the Times reporter for a run in a ProStar PTI uses in its classes. Along the way he stressed a variety of good habits for motorists driving around trucks. Nice to see a close look at the subject in a mainstream, if local, outlet.

Can’t quite say the same for …
… the headline on this next one — “Georgia casualties pile up as a federal move to slow truckers plods on” — another unfortunate one, likening victims of crashes involving trucks to deaths in war, as if truckers were running the roads trying to get into accidents. It’s from Atlanta Journal-Constitution writer Jim Galloway, whose piece is informative on the specifics of just how lawmakers in Georgia (and regulators at the DOT) are lining up to push regulations we are all well aware of in the wake of the accident (though, no, the e-log rule is not the same as the speed limiter rule, Jim). Give it a read here.

Investment coming in Virginia ports
“The cavalry is coming,” wrote Robert McCabe in the Virginian-Pilot in a piece that you can read at this link. McCabe was writing about the Virginia Port Authority board’s capital-spending projects for “the fiscal year starting July 1” totaling $134 million, more than half of which is dedicated to “projects intended to increase the flow of truck cargo in the port” and ease truck congestion.

Anybody who keeps an eye on Overdrive‘s Twitter feed will know it’s a daily issue (see below) along I-64 and other routes into, out of and around Hampton Roads. Take a look at McCabe’s story for more of the details.

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