From the NY Post:Last year, the city was hit with more than 1,000 legal claims and hundreds of complaints from New Yorkers claiming 20-ton garbage trucks were careening the wrong way down city streets, running stop signs, making illegal U-turns -- and taking out side-view mirrors, trees, fire hydrants and even people along the way.
During the 2009 fiscal year, taxpayers shelled out $17.6 million to settle 1,069 claims involving department vehicles, said a spokesman for city Comptroller John Liu.
Over the past three fiscal years, sanitation vehicles were involved in more than 6,000 crashes -- among a fleet of 5,500 vehicles -- that injured 294 people, according to agency data.
Sanitation spokesman Vito Turso said the "vast majority" of the accidents "are fender-benders, many of which occur during snow and ice conditions when collection trucks are converted to snowplows by adding a one-ton, 10-foot-wide plow blade."
Turso noted that sanitation workers log 6.87 million hours of driving a year, and said the department has "a very aggressive accident-reduction program" that rewards districts with notable reductions.
Still, accidents actually increased during the 2009 fiscal year by 19, to 2,189.
Photo from the NY Times
4 comments:
Anyone out in the evening, on the stoop, on foot, driving, knows that the garbage trucks beat even tow trucks for reckless driving.
Not surprised the city guys get into it, too.
Don't understand why they get away with it.
The Sanitation Dept routes are grueling for these workers and they do a good job on my block. Yes they do u turns and back up in the middle of intersections, but the city contracts encouraged them to do this as incentives to take on 20% more of a route to get paid more.
Sure accidents - mostly mirrors and scrapes occur but surprisingly I have seen none in all my years of watching these hard working folks.
The accidents are more probably caused by the neighorhood residents rather than the garbage truck drivers.
Residents blow stop signs repeatedly.
They're talking mainly about parked cars.
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