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A fatal accident can cost a trucking company over 1mil USD. The ATA (American Trucking Association) lobbies heavily to allow under 21-year-olds to carry freight

A fatal accident can cost a trucking company over 1mil USD. The ATA (American Trucking Association) lobbies heavily to allow under 21-year-olds to carry freight over state lines. There’s no talk about in the upper echelons of US trucking to relax medical, drug, safety, or experience requirements; these companies know it will put them out of business if they hire drivers who get into accidents or even get people killed. There is currently a HUGE lack of qualified, safe trucker drivers in the US. Your suggestion would drive up the cost of freight in the US, and would cost lives. Further, companies like Amazon will have enough money and influence to absorb the cost of unsafe drivers, while most registered US motor carriers (the vast majority of which are under 100 trucks) will be put at a huge disadvantage vis a vi Amazon. The last thing society needs is Amazon yet again pushing others out of business by being able to race to the bottom and lose money in the short to medium term.

matz1 7y ago
>A fatal accident can cost a trucking company over 1mil USD That's the deterrent for the trucker to not screwing up.
- himeexcelanta 7y ago
  Are you for real? At best involuntary manslaughter will get you usually at least 12 months in US prison, not to mention any financial penalties from the criminal or civil lawsuit. Do you have any first hand experience with trucking? It really sounds like you are expressing your opinion from a place of ignorance (feel free to prove me wrong with reasoned argument). My background: I am a founder of a US based software company whose customers are motor carriers.
  - ryanobjc 7y ago
    I find hackernews oddly unsatisfying recently because of comment threads like this. Someone pops in and offers a knee jerk “no regulation” suggestion. Then either people agree with them (yikes!) or there is this type of exchange. Where an expert (and I have a ton of truck drivers in both sides of my family, so while I am not an “expert” by vocation, I am very familiar with issues) points out real life problems and the other person doubles down on crazy. This means I have to have my “idiot filter” on whenever I’m reading hn.
    - matz1 7y ago
      I'm not suggestion no regulation, rather less regulation. I'm not claiming I'm and expert. Can you maybe please argue the point, rather than resorting to insult.

matz1 7y ago

>A fatal accident can cost a trucking company over 1mil USD That's the deterrent for the trucker to not screwing up.

himeexcelanta 7y ago
Are you for real? At best involuntary manslaughter will get you usually at least 12 months in US prison, not to mention any financial penalties from the criminal or civil lawsuit. Do you have any first hand experience with trucking? It really sounds like you are expressing your opinion from a place of ignorance (feel free to prove me wrong with reasoned argument). My background: I am a founder of a US based software company whose customers are motor carriers.
- ryanobjc 7y ago
  I find hackernews oddly unsatisfying recently because of comment threads like this. Someone pops in and offers a knee jerk “no regulation” suggestion. Then either people agree with them (yikes!) or there is this type of exchange. Where an expert (and I have a ton of truck drivers in both sides of my family, so while I am not an “expert” by vocation, I am very familiar with issues) points out real life problems and the other person doubles down on crazy. This means I have to have my “idiot filter” on whenever I’m reading hn.
  - matz1 7y ago
    I'm not suggestion no regulation, rather less regulation. I'm not claiming I'm and expert. Can you maybe please argue the point, rather than resorting to insult.