Driver A parks his package car forgetting to apply the E-brake. The car rolls away and hits a tree causing minimal damage.
Driver B parks his package car forgetting to apply the E-brake. The car rolls away and runs over a child, killing him.
The cause of these incidents was exactly the same. Do we discipline both drivers the same? Driver A's package car could have just as easily killed someone, he just got lucky.
I don't know, just sayin....
Excellent point over and I want to take it a step further. The technolgy of automatic transmission is what, 60-70 years old? Yet, as late as 1999 UPS had not invested in this safer "technology"?
Yes, shame on the driver for not putting the car in gear and applying the park break, but shame on UPS for not making these cars automatic transmissions.
I say this because I feel like I'm walking on egg shells everytime I park on a steep hill in the beat-up 1987 P1000s. I'm talking about a hill so steep that the bulk head door won't stay open at the stop. After securing the vehicle with the tire turned towards the curb and the car in 1st with the park-brake on, I still must dance around the stick-shift like I'm Fred Astaire!
First, that park-brake does crap! Next I go back and select a 40 pound package and must avoid hitting the stick shift. What if I slip and hit the shift and the car pops out of gear? Do you think the park break is going to hold?
If the UPS vehicle had automatic transmission public safety would be increased 100-fold. I can't imagine a roll-away with an automatic transmission package car? Instead, UPS still employs these relics from 3 decades ago that are a hazard to the general public just to save a buck. How about spending a few bucks to save many more in avoiding tier-3 accidents?
Turned-over package cars are a tier-3 accident. The old P10's and P-8's are so top-heavy I can feel the thing almost turning over in steep driveways that a newer P10 would handle just fine with its lower base.
Imagine this: UPS is employing vehicles with safety features desingned for the 1980's. Would you send your kid out in a car with the safety features of a 1985 ford when she could have the safety features of today's cars?
Our package cars have no power steering for heavens sake! There are many hundreds of millions of vehicles on the road in the USA today. All of them have power steering. There are a small minority that don't and they belong to one owner. This owner has deep pockets yet makes a spectatacle of itself when the public witnesses a driver trying to drive this truck in tight spots.
They witness a driver struggling and "pushing and pulling" on the steering wheel to get the truck into the spot. It now registers on this witness that "He has no power-steering?" "are you kidding me?". Not something you want to sell the public when asking for their business. "Oh you can service my packages better that Fed-Ex?" "but you can't buy power-steering vehicles?"
Perception is reality!!
You want to eliminate roll-aways? Just upgrade the fleet to automatic transmission. It should have begun in the 1980's.
Fed-Ex doen't have any old trucks and embarassed drivers "pushing and pulling" their steering wheels. Why UPS?