It's April 2007, what time? 5:32 in the morning. The cold rages on the Pan-American highway; A passenger bus from Jiménez, Chihuahua, is dangerously close to a tractor-trailer loaded with 40 tons of spare parts and steel materials that circulate at the area.
At 5:37 a.m. catastrophic happened both units collided, leaving several dead and dozens injured. The accident was caused by one of the operators falling asleep due to fatigue and long working hours.
Several onlookers approach the place, one of them murmurs: "Because of these things, then the drivers have no choice but to drink any drink or a lot of caffeine so as not to fall asleep and arrive on time." The people around you share the same thought.
Cargo truck drivers, forgotten
Unfortunately, accidents like this one or the one that occurred recently on the Mexico-Puebla highway do not happen by divine grace, they can be caused by many factors, and one of them is precisely the overexploitation and abuses to which the operators are subjected.
The work activity itself affects health and causes fatigue problems among motor carrier drivers in addition to the possible consequences such as accidents and their impact on the road safety of other road users.
However, some companies abuse them, forcing them to cover hours without adequate rest and leaving them at the last link in an endless chain of irresponsibility.
According to the Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transport, SICT, the main cause of road accidents is the fatigue of the operators, and not so much the configuration of the units, since they work continuous hours without some rest.
Standard 087-SCT-2017 of the SICT establishes a break of every 30 minutes for every 5 hours of travel; Furthermore, the maximum driving time in 24 hours can never exceed 14 hours.
These seem like numbers that the wind takes them since they are rarely met. That is why long hours, shift rotation, intense pace, and night work increase the possibility of accidents on any highway in the country.
According to studies on the conditions of trucking workers in Mexico, truck drivers (as we call them in TrackChain) are subjected to commercial pressures, derived from the cost structure and the level of billing or sale of their services.
This means "not stopping the vehicle", that is, keeping it in service, so they are exposed to long working hours and prolonged periods away from home.
Many times they suffer pressure from the customer or shipper not to miss the appointment, which leads them to increase the speed of the unit, exponentially increasing the possibility of accidents.
At the same time, both truck drivers and carriers have suffered abuse by shippers, for example, they are not allowed to sleep in the truck if it is in their CEDIS (in addition to not being paid on time and shape), encouraging them to drive without hours of sleep.
The foregoing is accentuated because the operator cannot warn other colleagues about abuses suffered by some shippers, nor have any prior reference to it.
To all this, it would be necessary to add a little control in the preventive maintenance of the units. In the absence of an advanced and technological system to monitor them, truck wear is even higher and profitability is reduced.
Correct preventive maintenance lowers repair costs, prevents the truck from being inoperative for long periods, and can prevent fatal accidents.
TrackChain reduces long working hours and abuse.
Unfortunately, truck drivers don't get their fair share of economic growth and are blamed 100% when an accident happens, without integrating all the abuse factors that could have caused it into the discussion.
TrackChain is a social integration platform that seeks to transform the ecosystem of transport operators for greater respect and quality of life.
Thanks to a much more efficient load allocation, truck drivers will be able to considerably improve their working hours and, therefore, reduce the fatigue and haste with which they often drive.
The system is done through their smartphones. Using them for daily work management will make your job more professional, process-oriented, and create a new sense of dignity.
Forget not being able to warn about abuse by shippers. With TrackChain's immutable reputation system, truck drivers and transporters can leave their shipper evaluation, as well as receive it too.
At the same time, the TrackChain TMS allows you to manage your fleet for smaller than this is. You can purchase this useful tool for free. Like large corporations, you will be able to have better control of the preventive and corrective maintenance of your units, and in this way optimize times and reduce the risks of an accident.
Finally, by providing a more efficient factoring program such as TrackChain, with digital payments to their bank accounts, all truck drivers will receive their compensation on time, without the risk of increasing the speed on the way to obtain it.
Our mission is to make a revolution in the industry to restore dignity and impact the lives of 50 thousand truck drivers in a positive way.
We are transforming logistics to make it more humane, faster, safer, and more efficient. Don't hesitate and join TrackChain right now.You can also request a free demo.
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