WASHINGTON – On a clear, dry June evening in 2015, cars and trucks rolled slowly in a herky-jerky backup ahead of an Interstate 75 construction zone in Ooltewah. Barreling toward them: an 18 ton semitractor-trailer going about 80 mph.
Despite multiple signs warning of slow traffic, the driver, with little or no braking, bashed into eight vehicles before coming to a stop about 1 1/2 football fields away. Six people died in the mangled wreck, and four more were hurt. The driver, Ben Brewer, was convicted of vehicular homicide and other charges last month.
In response to this and similar crashes, the government in 2016 proposed requiring new heavy trucks to have potentially life-saving software that would electronically limit speeds. But now, it has been delayed indefinitely by the Transportation Department as part of a sweeping retreat from regulations President Donald Trump said slow the economy.
A review by The Associated Press of the department’s rulemaking activities in Trump’s first year in office shows at least a dozen safety rules that were under development or already adopted have been repealed, withdrawn, delayed or put on the back burner. In most cases, those rules are opposed by powerful industries. And the political appointees running the agencies that write the rules often come from the industries they regulate.
Meanwhile, there have been no significant new safety rules adopted over the same period.