美国国家公共电台 NPR Trump Administration Poised To Relax Trucking Safety Rules Despite Warnings

 

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On an average day, crashes involving large trucks or buses kill about a dozen Americans. There's a good chance at least one crash will involve a sleepy driver. But some truckers say rules designed to make sure they get enough rest actually contribute to accidents, and they want those rules relaxed. Safety advocates say doing that would almost certainly drive up the death toll¹. Frank Morris of member station KCUR reports.

FRANK MORRIS, BYLINE²: Most truck drivers are paid strictly³ by the mile not by the hour, so they drive as much as possible. But tired truckers can cause horrific wrecks⁵. So the government caps driving time at 11 hours a day. Truckers have to stop and rest for at least a half an hour during that time. These rules are part of hours of service regulations, and many drivers just hate them.

CARMEN ANDERSON: It's kind of like when you're in kindergarden, and they're sitting there saying, OK. It's nap time. You have to take a nap.

MORRIS: And driver Carmen Anderson says you don't necessarily get to choose your spot to stop. In fact, when I caught up with her, she was stranded⁶ in her burgundy Kenworth semi in a barren industrial section of Shreveport, La.

ANDERSON: Warehouses⁷ on one side and smaller warehouses on the other side of - it just, you know, goes all the way down the block like that - warehouses and fences, no sidewalks even.

MORRIS: No security, no bathroom - though at least it didn't reek⁸ of urine like many of these makeshift parking spots. Anderson had to spend a whole night - a full eight hours - locked in the sleeping berth⁹ behind her cab because of those hours of service regulations.

ANDERSON: I would like to see more flexibility¹⁰.

MORRIS: So would Dan Horvath with the American Trucking Associations. He says the push to ease the hours of service rules started about a year and a half ago. That's when the government mandated¹¹ electronic logging devices in long-haul trucks - minders that track a semi's every move. Before then, truckers kept paper logs of their driving time - so easy to fudge that some drivers called them comic books.

DAN HORVATH: Now we're counting seconds and minutes. For carriers and may not have been complying with the rules before, this is all coming to kind of a spotlight¹² situation here.

MORRIS: So the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is looking at maybe getting rid of that mandatory¹³ half-hour rest break or letting truckers split up their sleep time. Driver Michael Whitaker says tweaks like that would make it easier to avoid hazards like rush hour.

MICHAEL WHITAKER: We don't want to interact with cars during rush hour traffic. We want to stay as far away from y'all as possible.

MORRIS: After all, car drivers are a lot more likely than truck drivers to cause a wreck⁴. But trucker fatigue¹⁴ is a factor in hundreds of crashes each year, and the results can be deadly.

DAWN KING: My dad was killed by a tired trucker back in December of 2004.

MORRIS: Dawn King, who now volunteers with the Truck Safety Coalition¹⁵, says Bill Badger¹⁶ was stuck in traffic, waiting for police to clear a wreck up ahead.

KING: The semi truck in back of him failed to see any of that, slammed into him while on cruise control. And the driver jumped out of the cabin, said he had fallen asleep.

MORRIS: More than one in 10 large truck crashes involve sleepy truck drivers. And highway safety advocate Cathy Chase says large truck crash deaths are up a whopping 40% from a decade ago.

CATHY CHASE: We really should not be considering weakening the regulations. We should be considering enhancing them. The safety of everyone traveling on our roads is at stake.

MORRIS: Dawn King says the hours of service changes proposed in the name of flexibility all extend driving and working limits. And so far, she says the industry hasn't produced the data to prove that that won't cause more deadly truck crashes.

For NPR News, I'm Frank Morris.

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1 toll   

n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟)

参考例句：

• The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
• The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 strictly   

adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地

参考例句：

• His doctor is dieting him strictly.他的医生严格规定他的饮食。
• The guests were seated strictly in order of precedence.客人严格按照地位高低就座。

4 wreck   

n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难

参考例句：

• Weather may have been a factor in the wreck.天气可能是造成这次失事的原因之一。
• No one can wreck the friendship between us.没有人能够破坏我们之间的友谊。

5 wrecks   

n.沉船( wreck的名词复数 )；（事故中）遭严重毁坏的汽车（或飞机等）；（身体或精神上）受到严重损伤的人；状况非常糟糕的车辆（或建筑物等）v.毁坏[毁灭]某物( wreck的第三人称单数 )；使（船舶）失事，使遇难，使下沉

参考例句：

• The shores are strewn with wrecks. 海岸上满布失事船只的残骸。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• My next care was to get together the wrecks of my fortune. 第二件我所关心的事就是集聚破产后的余财。 来自辞典例句

6 stranded   

a.搁浅的，进退两难的

参考例句：

• He was stranded in a strange city without money. 他流落在一个陌生的城市里， 身无分文，一筹莫展。
• I was stranded in the strange town without money or friends. 我困在那陌生的城市，既没有钱，又没有朋友。

7 warehouses   

仓库，货栈( warehouse的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The whisky was taken to bonded warehouses at Port Dundee. 威士忌酒已送到邓迪港的保稅仓库。
• Row upon row of newly built warehouses line the waterfront. 江岸新建的仓库鳞次栉比。

8 reek   

v.发出臭气；n.恶臭

参考例句：

• Where there's reek,there's heat.哪里有恶臭，哪里必发热。
• That reek is from the fox.那股恶臭是狐狸发出的。

9 berth   

n.卧铺，停泊地，锚位；v.使停泊

参考例句：

• She booked a berth on the train from London to Aberdeen.她订了一张由伦敦开往阿伯丁的火车卧铺票。
• They took up a berth near the harbor.他们在港口附近找了个位置下锚。

10 flexibility   

n.柔韧性，弹性，（光的）折射性，灵活性

参考例句：

• Her great strength lies in her flexibility.她的优势在于她灵活变通。
• The flexibility of a man's muscles will lessen as he becomes old.人老了肌肉的柔韧性将降低。

11 mandated   

adj. 委托统治的

参考例句：

• Mandated desegregation of public schools. 命令解除公立学校中的种族隔离
• Britain was mandated to govern the former colony of German East Africa. 英国受权代管德国在东非的前殖民地。

12 spotlight   

n.公众注意的中心，聚光灯，探照灯，视听，注意，醒目

参考例句：

• This week the spotlight is on the world of fashion.本周引人瞩目的是时装界。
• The spotlight followed her round the stage.聚光灯的光圈随着她在舞台上转。

13 mandatory   

adj.命令的；强制的；义务的；n.受托者

参考例句：

• It's mandatory to pay taxes.缴税是义务性的。
• There is no mandatory paid annual leave in the U.S.美国没有强制带薪年假。

14 fatigue   

n.疲劳，劳累

参考例句：

• The old lady can't bear the fatigue of a long journey.这位老妇人不能忍受长途旅行的疲劳。
• I have got over my weakness and fatigue.我已从虚弱和疲劳中恢复过来了。

15 coalition   

n.结合体，同盟，结合，联合

参考例句：

• The several parties formed a coalition.这几个政党组成了政治联盟。
• Coalition forces take great care to avoid civilian casualties.联盟军队竭尽全力避免造成平民伤亡。

16 badger   

v.一再烦扰，一再要求，纠缠

参考例句：

• Now that our debts are squared.Don't badger me with them any more.我们的债务两清了。从此以后不要再纠缠我了。
• If you badger him long enough,I'm sure he'll agree.只要你天天纠缠他，我相信他会同意。