Trump admin. to overturn Obama-era trucking safety rules

It’s tiresomely repetitive: First, the Obama administration passes eminently reasonable regulations designed to improve safety at the cost of slightly hindering corporations; then Trump hears about it and rushes to undo it, regardless of the consequences. The only variable is which industry is involved. This time, it’s trucking:

The Trump administration is hitting the brakes on a range of Obama-era trucking safety regulations, and some truckers are hoping for a last-minute reprieve from another safety mandate scheduled to take effect next month.

But advocates worry this rolling back of safety rules will make highways more dangerous.

[…]

"We see these issues in crash after crash, and we're tired, yes we are tired, of seeing commercial drivers being tired," said Robert Sumwalt, chairman the National Transportation Safety Board. He made the comments at a recent NTSB hearing on a horrific crash involving a tour bus and a semitrailer outside of Palm Springs, Calif., in October of 2016.

[…]

The truck driver allegedly had falsified his log book to indicate he'd slept more in recent days than he actually had.

Investigators say the bus driver, who was killed in the crash, may not have seen the stopped truck in front of him because he too may have dozed off.

The article is full of truckers and companies complaining about over-regulation and the additional expenses brought on. On the one hand, I understand that strict rules that don’t always take into account various circumstances can be frustrating. On the other, they will save lives by limiting the number of highway accidents linked to sleep deprivation, and that rather blows the other argument out of the water, doesn’t it?

Let’s all hope he never finds out Obama encouraged doctors to find a cure to cancer or that he passed fireproofing regulations for orphanages or something.

(via @fark)