New York City to Impose Stricter Safety Standards on Private Garbage Companies

Let’s look Inside these staggering numbers. There are 7,800 garbage trucks operating in the industry’s privately-owned fleets inside the New York City limits. Since 2010 there has been 43 people killed by privately-owned garbage trucks. In 2017 to date there have been 7 deaths reported and the numbers vary from 2 to 7 each year. This is astonishing especially when you consider that since 2014 the city owned fleet of 5,500 has not be involved with one fatality.

New York City lacks the authority to enforce safety protocols on the privately-owned companies. New York’s Business Integrity Commission (BIC) is seeking to have lawmakers craft legislation that would broaden its regulatory power. “It is likely we will need mandatory measures in place to ensure that companies are actually using the materials and creating their own safety plans,” Chair Dan Brownell testified. BIC is working on an industry wide safety manual that will be released sometime in the next few months. The goal would be that all privately owned and city run companies will have to follow the manuals safety measures.

It is clear that by providing strong safety measures and guidelines that fatalities and serious accidents decrease. The city mandates will include shorter routes with more limited geographical areas to cover, resulting in less driver fatigue and installing truck side guards on the garbage trucks. Truck side guards have been proven to prevent fatalities in situations where there is a side impact collision. The side guard will deflect the person and prevent them from going under the vehicle and being ran over. Side guards are a simple solution to prevent the loss of lives.

Walker Blocker plans to get more involved in the New York area with its side guards.