Truck Driver Gets 110 Years For Claiming The Lives Of Four People.

[Ray From Cleveland]

Because of NAFTA, we get idiots driving trucks. We can't hold politicians or government or licensing agencies accountable, it's inevitable there is going to be a fall guy. Here we are.

Sure we can hold them accountable. Where is the equity in making a native born American having to get training, experience, licensing when they give these guys a free pass? If you want to come to this country to drive, fine, but go through all that we had to go through to drive here and I'm okay with it.

 

[Wild Bill Kelsoe]

That's not what's being reported. I don't know how much lumber weighs, but I'd say at most 25,000 lbs. I've come to a screeching halt carrying 35,000. If you watched the video you can see him losing control of the vehicle long before the crash. The moron kept breaking with his regular brakes until they no longer worked due to heat. When you downshift a manual transmission you have to gun the engine to meet with the transmission which it doesn't seem he knew how to do. He probably tried but once out of gear, was in neutral and couldn't stop it because he had no regular breaks.

A load of lumber weighs in the neighborhood of 45k, meaning his gross weight was 75k +/-.

He was hauling ass down that mountain and by the time he figured out he had to stop, he didn't have enough distance to stop. His weight + speed + downgrade would require every bit of a thousand feet to come to a complete stop. On flat ground 75k, doing 65 mph needs about 600 feet to stop.

His brakes failed, alright. They failed because he burned them up trying to stop in too short of a distance. I think he lied about his brakes failing and that caused him to be doing 80 mph. He was doing 80 because he wanted to be a super trucker and that's the only way that piece of shit he was driving would do 80.

 

[Wild Bill Kelsoe]

I would still like to know. The reason for that is I've seen so many of these foreigners that couldn't backup a trailer with a half a football field in front of them and two empty docks on both sides next to the one they were trying to back into, and they have to do 10 pull ups or more. I know damn well they never took or passed a CDL test here in the states. In fact you can tell some never drove a truck before in their lives.

I would like to see the responsibility of this accident given to those actually responsible, namely the bureaucrats. It's obvious to me they are letting in these inexperienced foreigners and just handing them US CDL licenses.

Some of those foreigners don't even have a CDL. They work for mom and pop outfits that throw them in a truck and turn them loose. The ones that speak zero English are the ones with no CDL, because there's no way they passed the skills test.

I had heard that the English proficiency standard was dropped, but I haven't seen anything online when I have researched it.

 

[Wild Bill Kelsoe]

Truckers are boycotting Colorado over this. I am conflicted. This guy need to be punished. Yes. But so do the licensing agencies and business involved, they played as much a part in this tragedy as well.

I don't think he deserved 110 years. Murderers have gotten sentences half that, or less.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Some of those foreigners don't even have a CDL. They work for mom and pop outfits that throw them in a truck and turn them loose. The ones that speak zero English are the ones with no CDL, because there's no way they passed the skills test.

I had heard that the English proficiency standard was dropped, but I haven't seen anything online when I have researched it.

Most of the foreign drivers I see are by themselves and there is no way to drive a few hundred miles without getting questioned at a weigh station or getting pulled over for a random truck inspection. They have to have a CDL and medical card. You need to surrender your CDL at the doctors office before they'll even let you fill out a medical card application.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

A load of lumber weighs in the neighborhood of 45k, meaning his gross weight was 75k +/-.

He was hauling ass down that mountain and by the time he figured out he had to stop, he didn't have enough distance to stop. His weight + speed + downgrade would require every bit of a thousand feet to come to a complete stop. On flat ground 75k, doing 65 mph needs about 600 feet to stop.

His brakes failed, alright. They failed because he burned them up trying to stop in too short of a distance. I think he lied about his brakes failing and that caused him to be doing 80 mph. He was doing 80 because he wanted to be a super trucker and that's the only way that piece of shit he was driving would do 80.

You'll never heat up your breaks that quickly. He was using them for some time. When breaks are burnt up, it has a distinct smell to them and it lasts for hours. It fades, but anybody like a state trooper can walk to the wheels and easily smell them at the scene.

I've stopped my truck in less than 100 feet carrying over 35,000 lbs. He burned up his brakes without a doubt.

 

[whitehall]

"Claiming the lives"? Is that modern polite speak for killing?

 

[Wild Bill Kelsoe]

Most of the foreign drivers I see are by themselves and there is no way to drive a few hundred miles without getting questioned at a weigh station or getting pulled over for a random truck inspection. They have to have a CDL and medical card. You need to surrender your CDL at the doctors office before they'll even let you fill out a medical card application.

I haven't been pulled into a scale house, or been DOT'ed since before the pandemic started.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

"Claiming the lives"? Is that modern polite speak for killing?

In a sense yes, but it was not intentional so claiming the lives because it was a mistake and and accident sounds more closer to what happened. A killing sounds like a direct murder.