A sad day in our industry. A fatal accident involving Walmart Truck Driver and a Luxury Mercedes Van collided on the New Jersey Turnpike over the weekend. Tracy Morgan, famous comedy actor is in critical condition, and friend/ entertainer Jimmy “Mack” has passed. Driver turned himself in after event. Walmart is known for stellar safety and carrier performance. We feel for all parties affected by this tragic circumstance.
If you didn’t know already, Walmart has their own private fleet. In order to run Walmart is known for being one of the strongest carriers out in the industry. The DOT assigns every working carrier a six digit Motor Carrier #. This MC# can be tracked and looked up based on 5 critiques : Safety, Hours of Service, Driver Fitness, Controlled Substance/ Alcohol, Vehicle Maintenance.
Safety :
Safety is based on moving violations, tickets, and accidents
Hours of Service :
H.O.S. is based on drivers moving within legal time limits. President Obama and FMCSA has enacted a new law that :
“FMCSA’s new hours-of-service (HOS) rule reduces by 12 hours the maximum number of hours a truck driver can work within a week. Under the old rule, truck drivers could work on average up to 82 hours within a seven-day period. The new HOS final rule limits a driver’s work week to 70 hours. It also mandates a 30 minute rest period within every eight hour period.”
H.O.S. violations are important when looking at carrier approval because if a carrier has high amount of violations in this area they are more inclined to have bad safety ratings
Driver Fitness:
This entails the physical fitness of a driver. If a driver is overweight, back problems, carpel tunnel or work related injuries this score is indicative of where the driver is. It’s also been recently reported that Truck drivers have one of the highest ranking for obesity for work related occupation.
Controlled Substances and Alcohol :
If a carrier has a DUI or drug related charge it will be listed here. Pain medication can also affect this score. We believe in a 0 tolerance for Alcohol or Drug related charges.
Vehicle Maintenance :
This is based on the amount of inspections to carriers equipment and whether or not the vehicle(s) are up to code
The average score for carriers in this industsry range from a 65-75% range. Walmart Carriers rank in the 30% which is an excellent example of a carrier with a large fleet that meets or exceeds industry standards. This goes to show that bad things happen to great carriers.It is fundamental to always have your broker double check each carriers MC# thoroughly. Lower price usually means higher MC# scores.
Walmart’s driver, Kevin Rope, 35, turned himself in guilty and will face a New Jersey Court on charges of vehicular homicide, assault and reckless driving.
Walmart President/CEO Bill Simon says they’re working with investigators to figure out what led to the crash … adding, “this is a tragedy and we are profoundly sorry that one of our trucks was involved.”
Simon says, “We can’t change what happened, but we will do what’s right for the family of the victim and the survivors in the days and weeks ahead.”
For these unfortunate and tragic circumstances we are sending our prayers and good energy to all that were affected.
https://www.cnn.com/2014/06/08/showbiz/tracy-morgan-crash/
https://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tracy-morgan-driver-talks-aftermath-accident-article-1.1821642