Oregon Public Broadcasting

Logging truck accidents in Washington State are on the decline. But changes in the industry could foretell trouble in the future.

That’s the upshot of a study commissioned by the Washington State legislature. Olympia correspondent Austin Jenkins reports.

Log truck safety became a front-and-center issue in Washington State three years ago.

That’s when state seismologist Tony Qamar and colleague Daniel Johnson were killed when a log truck rolled over and dumped its load on their car.

In response to the tragedy, Washington lawmakers passed enhanced truck safety legislation. Last year they also commissioned two university researchers to look into the safety record of the logging truck industry.

Larry Mason with the University of Washington says log truck accidents appear to be on the decline, but there’s still cause for concern.

Larry Mason: “This is an industry that’s under a lot of economic pressure and the response appears to have been that drivers are working longer and longer hours in order to make their ends meet.”

The report says logging truck accidents dropped by 11-percent between 2004 and 2006. At the same time, commercial vehicle accidents overall rose 15 percent.

Online:

http://www.ruraltech.org/pubs/reports/2008/log_trucks/index.asp