The Last U-Turn

Trucking Lessons from Highways to Courtrooms

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It was brought as an ordinary long-haul run, another night on the Florida toll roads. Other than that, it turned out to be a tragedy that has resonated throughout the trucking communities within the United States, Canada and even India.

Harjinder Singh, a Punjabi trucker since 2019, has tried to make an illegal U-turn ona busy Florida Turnpike, investigators said. The move trapped several lanes and a vehicle crashed into his trailer full speed, and this killed the driver instantly.This was another road accident to many. What it meant to the trucking industry, the regulators and immigrant drivers was just much more, it was about a study on how things would go wrong in something the U.S. termed as a preventable accident. Terminology of this kind does not exist much in India. Crashes here are characterised as vague: rash driving, negligence or bad luck. In North America, however, preventable accident is a legal term that has bite. It implies that in case, the driver of the truck would have reasonably averted the collision but failed to do, the truck driver is solely to blame. And that principle is what the difference is.

What is a "Preventable Accident"?