http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-061210truckers-story,1,3396591.story
(with video)
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0612100364dec10,1,4940415.story
(without video)

<...>

""Did I hit something? What happened? Who did this?" Spencer said at the
scene. Besides five counts of reckless homicide, Spencer also was charged
with filing a false logbook, concealing that he had driven 9? hours
beyond the 11-hour daily maximum allowed by law.

Truckers do not escape being victims; 930 were killed in the U.S. while
working last year, up 33 percent from 1992. And while they made up only 2
percent of the workforce last year they accounted for more than 16
percent of fatal workplace injuries.

Last week the health of truck drivers was taken up by the U.S. Appeals
Court in Washington, D.C. It heard the latest arguments in a long battle
that has pitted trucking companies against groups concerned with driver
safety. Companies are pushing to increase the time drivers can be behind
the wheel; critics contend that extending truckers' workdays is aimed at
increasing corporate profits at drivers' expense."

<...>

"`Sweatshop on wheels'

By the late 1990s much of the industry was transformed into a "sweatshop
on wheels," Belzer claims. Truckers' income, when adjusted for inflation,
dropped steadily as the market was flooded with new companies, new
drivers, and pressures from shippers and manufacturers to keep freight
costs down."

<...>

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After reading this article, I am even more affraid of these rigs. And
in a few years the Mexican drivers will be brought in to undercut the market
even more.