An article in Parade magazine that had been anticipated and dreaded by the trucking industry has been published, but insiders believe its impact will be minimal.

The article, titled “Do Trucks Make You Nervous?” was written by Bernard Gavzer and appeared in the Oct. 30 edition of the weekly tabloid-style magazine, which is inserted in many major Sunday newspapers.

Many industry officials feared the article would paint the trucking industry in a negative light, as did another Parade article written by Gavzer in 1999. However, the story – which was limited to a single page, with an infographic in a column on a second page devoted to “How to Share the Road ” – didn’t include the mistruths and fact-bending as did its predecessor, said Todd Spencer, executive vice president for OOIDA.

“I think based on what we saw, this particular article fell victim to space limitations that, coincidentally, limited the amount of misinformation that could be applied about trucks and truckers,” Spencer said. “We’re, in essence, sort of pleased with how it came out.”

Spencer said his biggest problem with the latest article wasn’t the information that was present, but rather the facts that supported the trucking industry that were left out.

“I had talked to the reporter myself on several occasions about issues that were important, and unfortunately, none of those appeared in the story,” Spencer said.

“Specifically, the impact of the changes in the split sleeper-berth exemptions for truckers, and how that itself would create a really fatiguing situation for drivers, and one that’s almost impossible to effectively manage without being fatigued. I was certainly optimistic that that would make the piece, but that didn’t, either.”

Gavzer’s earlier article raised a great deal of concern from members of the trucking community, many of whom thought the article unfairly stereotyped truckers. Specifically, challengers of the story said Gavzer suppressed information from studies and sources that cast trucking in a positive light, and instead exaggerated dangers of truck accidents and the number of hours truckers are allowed to rest under federal standards.

“Most truck drivers viewed this as a hatchet job because the needlessly inflammatory rhetoric of the story implies that truck drivers knowingly and purposely kill people,” said Tom Weakley, a project manager for the OOIDA Foundation. “This is simply not true. In most of these accidents, the truck driver does not cause the accident – meaning the truck driver is a victim, too.”

By Aaron Ladage, staff writer
aaron_ladage@landlinemag.com