Cross-pollination of Industry Knowledge is the Key to Innovation

Well as we have always said if you want tofreight costs, more trucks on the road and
change the world you take something from onetherefore more in experienced new drivers, more
industry and apply it to another. History hascongestion, more pollution and that means more
shown this, for instance many of Leonardoaccidents not less. Oh well, leave it to the
DaVinci and his drawings and the Bicycleregulators to screw up something else. Lockheed
Mechanics Wright brothers. Well in that samehas some good ideas for the project and we
tradition the Makers of Aircraft Jet Simulators,stand to learn alot about human behavior, accident
Lockheed are now producing a prototype Truckpsychology and survivability of Murphy-ism.
training simulator.Combine this with a new state of awareness in
[transportation with regards to International
You can buy video games simulators in truckingTerrorism; your new drivers will be your last and
just like the aviation ones by Microsoft already,permanent line of defense.
sometimes art really does influence reality, 3DJust think if Todd Beemer would have had all the
Virtual reality that istraining given to the Delta Force or Navy Seal
Why? Well because there are certain things youTeam Six prior to the hi-jacking. Probably a
will not wish to do in a truck during training, whichdifferent result. Also realize that with safer trucks
will help a new driver learn experiences. Forand systems which measure tire pressure, instant
instance driving off the road accidentally and thenweather reporting, GPS, etc, these new trucks or
doing a gentle slow down, ride it out recoverya new driver could possibly drive for years
rather than jerking the wheel and finding your selfwithout a single incident and each mile with no
jack knifed along with 40,000 -60,000 pounds ofincident makes them a little less attentive and
payload. This project is a joint venture with GE.gives them a false sense of security, when the
[crap hits the fan they will have never experienced
Obviously you do not want to purposely blow outanything like that and might end up upside down in
a front right tire in an snow storm with black icethe ditch and we have seen enough of those in
on the road while passing a two lane narrowour travels, but high winds, blow-outs, boredom,
bridge with construction vehicles parked thereunsafe four wheelers, heavy traffic and road
over night. Which could easily happen onconditions, equipment failures can occur. And as
Pennsylvania's Toll Ways in the winter. The goalLockheed will tell you after testing all those
being total control, pre-planning, calm cool andX-Planes, "Events Occur" so then do them in a
collected response, not panic, which could lead tosimulator first. I can recall my dad flew the DC-10
death, injury and closing of a major arterial pieceO'Hare Accident safely in a simulator after the
of infrastructure. Of course these simulators arecontrols were put into the simulator exactly as
not cheap, but it could save more lives than thethose during that fatal flight. Imagine the positive
bogus newly enacted ridiculous hours of operationaspects of this.
rules by the DOT which will actually lead to higher