Below is a note written by an employee within the Central Region, Lisa Winters. Lisa wanted to share a real life example of why everyone in this industry needs to put safety number one in everything they do on a daily basis. Professional Truck Drivers assume a tremendous amount of risk every day. Letting down their guard just once can be the difference between life and death.
The picture is one of my daughter Cathryn on Saturday August
9, 2014 right after her graduation from Bowling Green State University in Ohio
with her fiancé Aaron. This was supposed
to be one of the happiest days of her life. However, it turned into what can
only be described as the scariest.
After graduation we gathered up all our things, packed up
the cars and headed south toward Cincinnati. Just past the I-75S exit 110
(Wapakoneta) a deer ran across the highway in front of the car my daughter was
driving. A Dodge Neon is not like one of
our tractors – it cannot take the hit. A
twenty two year girl doesn’t have the experience for that kind of driving.
She served and lost control of her car, careening across the
medium and into the heavy north bound traffic.
Most accidents of this kind seem to end at this point with a death or
severe injury. My daughter got extremely
lucky - - the truck driver in the northbound lane was not only observant, but
pro-active. Now, while I am quite sure
this driver probably got ‘dinged’ for a extreme hard-brake event…. His actions
saved my daughter’s life. Not only did
he manage to slow down enough not to impact her, he also somewhat ‘straddled’
the lanes to keep any cars behind him from passing or from striking my daughter.
(Not sure what the Smith System might
have to say about straddling lanes – on that day – I am good with it – correct
procedure or not.) He even stopped his rig when she got her car stopped, got
out and made sure she was ok.
Only an alert driver who is truly aware of his surroundings
and scanning the road ahead would have had the time to not only re-act with
preventive measures, but in this case protective measures for my daughter. Somewhere out there is a driver – I don’t
know who he is, and I don’t know who he drives for. What I do know- is that my daughter still lives because that
driver practices safe, preventive driving and I owe him a debt that I cannot
re-pay.
Perhaps the next time somebody complains about the amount of
time, effort and money JB Hunt puts into our safety programs – they need to
come and talk to me. Because every
nickel that was invested in that unknown driver was absolutely worth it!
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