Patti Tromiczak, like millions of other Chicago-area commuters, set out for work Aug. 30 with the simple goal of getting to work on time.
But as the 34-year-old chemist from Berwyn drove her 1986 Chevy Nova southbound on Interstate Highway 55, she encountered the modern driver’s nightmare.
A 30-pound chunk of sheet metal, believed to have fallen off a truck, flew through her windshield, smashing her hand and face and causing her to spin out of control and smash into another car. Now Tromiczak, who had to be helicoptered from the scene and spent 2 1/2 weeks in a coma, will spend her 35th birthday in rehabilitation. She is recovering from a compound skull fracture, as-yet-unknown mental damage and a broken left arm.
Accidents like Tromiczak’s have fueled animosity by drivers toward trucks in the Chicago area and sparked a renewed legislative effort to force all uncovered trucks in Illinois, and possibly the country, to secure their loads with tarpaulins.
Work crews on area roadways pick up tons of debris every month, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation-much of it fallen from trucks. Numerous accidents, from crashes to costly cracks in car windows, are caused by road debris.
“Definitely, there needs to be a greater liability on the trucking industry,” said Theodore Jarz, a Joliet attorney representing Tromiczak. “If the proper safety steps had been taken, that woman would not have been in the hospital.”
But are a few bad accidents staining the record of a relatively safe industry essential to the local economy? Truckers see themselves being used as scapegoats by area politicians looking to blame someone for increased traffic congestion and the dangerous debris that it can bring.
In fact, the number of accidents directly linked to debris falling off trucks has actually gone down in the last three years, according to state statistics.
“They’re trying to put up roadblocks for the industry,” said Don Schaefer, spokesman for the Springfield-based Midwest Truckers Association, which represents 2,600 truckers and trucking companies, mostly in Illinois. “There has always been a group that won’t see that trucks need access to the roads.”
The lobbying battle is now gearing up over legislative moves in Springfield and Washington. In Springfield, state Sen. Judy Baar Topinka (R-Riverside) is trying to push a bill to require tarps for all uncovered trucks in the six-county Chicago area. Similar proposals have been shot down in the past.
Currently, Illinois law states that all open-bed trucks must be covered if they are carrying material that is falling off. Truckers can face fines of up to $250 per violation. But Topinka said the law is unenforceable because police have to catch material falling off before they can pull a truck over.
Topinka said “a mandatory tarp law will take care of 99 percent of the problem” by drastically reducing debris. She said many truckers, out to deliver as many loads as they can in as short a time as possible, just don’t care about the safety of the growing number of suburban commuters.
“Is this the new suburban environment?” she asked. “We’re talking about these great suburban qualities of life that you move here for. Well, this is not one of them.”
Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. William Lipinski (D-Ill.) has put forward a bill to link federal aid for highways to a state’s passage of strict tarp laws. According to Lipinski’s office, only eight states have passed strict tarp laws, including Missouri, Florida and Texas.
Another nine have laws similar to Illinois’. Lipinski said he expects a hearing before a House transportation subcommittee within two months.
Both moves have the backing of the Chicago Motor Club, with more than 600,000 members in northern Illinois and northwestern Indiana.
Jonathan Lehrer, club spokesman, said the group plans to focus on the issue in its November/December membership newsletter and to begin lobbying for both initiatives.
“Our position is that the current laws are just not practical,” Lehrer said. “And we have a big problem. Not a day goes by without a steel coil or a frozen food or a pig or heaven knows what coming out of a truck.”
But the trucking industry has begun its own public relations campaign to quash both measures.
Ferdinand Serpe, executive director of the Illinois Transportation Association, said that requiring tarps would add costs to truckloads, which in turn would be passed on to the businesses using the trucks. The price of everything from homes to food would go up, he said.
He called the proposal politically motivated and said it would put a substantial strain on already over-regulated truckers.
“It’s pressure on an industry that already operates on a very limited profit margin,” he said. “But we are an integral part of the economy.”
Schaefer, of the Midwest Truckers Association, said the industry backs the current Illinois law, which he called a “model tarp law for the country.” He said the law is successfully being enforced throughout most of the state, except possibly the Chicago area because so many vehicles are on the road here.
“We’ve got a very workable law right now,” he said. “What is another law going to do if they don’t enforce it?”
Trucks of all sizes move just about everything we need, from building materials and food, and just about everything we don’t need, from ash to trash.
As of Oct. 1, 445,376 trucks were registered in Illinois. There is no way to measure how many of those are uncovered. John Kos, chief of maintenance for IDOT’s Chicago-area region, estimates that about 35,000 trucks pass the intersection of the Dan Ryan and Kennedy Expressways every weekday.
According to Serpe, of the Illinois Transportation Association, a trucking group based in River Grove, Schaumburg’s Woodfield Mall alone requires more than 26,000 truckload shipments a year.
Despite the popular perception, the number of major accidents caused by debris falling off of trucks has declined substantially since 1990, according to IDOT records.
In 1992, 352 accidents were reported on all state-operated roads in Illinois. One person was killed as a result, and 35 people were injured.
In 1991, 480 accidents took place, with two fatalities, and in 1990, there were 516 with one fatality, according to Rick Meyers, IDOT’s chief of accident information.
That’s a drop of 31 percent over the two years. Why? “I don’t have a clue,” Meyers said.
Ted Smith, the manager for IDOT’s Chicago-area emergency traffic patrol, said the number of accidents caused by truck debris is still too high. But his patrols are working on educating truckers about the dangers of uncovered loads, rather than pushing for more laws.
“We’re a long way from where a lot of us like to be,” he said. “We’ve all been driving along and some gravel comes flying along the road and you don’t even know where it came from but it pings and cracks your windshield.
“But the key is education to convince the people who haul these loads that they should take the extra five or 10 minutes to secure their loads. More tickets aren’t the answer.”
Wayne Szepelak, officer manager for the Boughton Trucking Co., which operates about 225 trucks in southern Cook, Du Page, Will and Kane Counties, said any tarp regulations would be a costly waste of time.
“It cuts into your operating time,” he said. “Those are dollars a minute that you’re spending putting on a tarp that you may not even need.”
But for victims like Patti Tromiczak and other drivers, tarps might make the difference between a run-of-the-mill drive to work and a brush with death.
According to Gary Mueller, an attorney working with Jarz, Tromiczak now must not only suffer the injuries of the accident, but also pay the “catastrophic” medical bill.
He said investigators are trying to track down what trucking company was shipping the metal object that crashed through her window.
“It’s tragic and it’s unfair,” he said. “She might have to pay for all this. That’s what she is faced with.”
