Amazon Hires A number of the Most Harmful Trucking Contractors within the U.S.: Report

When Amazon isn’t torturing workers or being complicit in individuals being detained and repatriated by Homeland Safety, it’s serving to make our lethal roads turn into even much less secure.

A brand new deep dive from the Wall Avenue Journal particulars a disturbing pattern among the many trucking contractors Amazon hires to haul among the round 1.6 million packages the corporate sends out each month. Reporters discovered that the Division of Transportation rated trucking corporations that ceaselessly contracted with Amazon with unsafe driving scores greater than twice as a lot as comparable trucking corporations.

In fact, Amazon disagrees with these findings nevertheless it certain looks as if the WSJ did its homework:

The Journal’s evaluation centered on 3,512 trucking corporations that had been inspected by authorities three or extra occasions whereas hauling trailers for Amazon since February 2020. That group carried 75% of Amazon tractor-trailer shipments documented in data of presidency inspections, which embody routine compliance checks, corresponding to at weigh stations, and visitors stops.

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The information present corporations that “ceaselessly haul Amazon’s freight are systematically extra prone to have poor driving security scores,” mentioned Jason Miller, a Michigan State College professor who research transportation security and validated the Journal’s methodology and findings. The consequence, he mentioned, is that “American motorists are put at higher danger.” (See associated story for the Journal’s full methodology.)

Facets of Amazon’s supply community have come beneath scrutiny from information organizations together with the Data, the New York Occasions and ProPublica. The Journal’s evaluation for the primary time confirmed how the security efficiency of Amazon’s trucking contractors in contrast with their friends.

The WSJ discovered proof that Amazon continued to make use of unsafe trucking contractors, even after the date the corporate mentioned contracts had been canceled. It’s not like these crashes haven’t left injury of their wake. One story recounted within the piece ends with a one-year-old’s dying and the paralyzing of his 3-year-old brother. An Amazon truck crash took a motorcyclist’s leg in 2021. In the meantime, Amazon says it put in place necessities that driving security scores be above the nationwide common for its toes again in February.

And this isn’t an industry-wide phenomenon by any means. UPS, for instance, retains violations, corresponding to false logs of driving hours, all the way down to possibly one in each one thousand logs. Amazon’s contract drivers had been dinged 70 occasions extra for a similar infraction. Strict supply occasions and contractors getting paid by the mile fairly than a wage like UPS drivers, contributes to the tradition of unsafe driving, nevertheless it’s not the entire story. As an example, the New York Occasions rang alarm bells about Amazon drivers again in 2019 nonetheless. It certain doesn’t look like security is all that hight on the priorities listing for Amazon drivers. What else can we count on from an organization that simply final 12 months was caught telling its drivers to show off a safety-tracking app in an effort to full deliveries in a extra well timed (and harmful) trend.

The Journal cooked up some very helpful visuals to assist readers grasp the precise enormity of the issue, so give it a glance proper right here.