Look up folks!

The right solution to this is an ignition interlock: mast + engine + not-Park equals kill-engine. The problem, as noted, is that such interlocks tend to fail in various interesting and annoying ways, usually at the worst possible time.

But the *real* problem — even one layer past “the maintenance department doesn’t maintain the interlock properly (assuming it exists at all :-})” is …

The truck operators don’t squawk the failure hard enough.

Clearly, quite a bit more motivation in hammering on getting it fixed so that it works *properly* and is hence not manually-overriden is called for, than is being currently displayed, somewhere along the line.

The mast interlock is a life-safety component, and you treat it that way, all the way up the line. If it breaks in either direction, you squawk it *immediately*, *and you don’t stop paying attention to it until it is fixed, properly*.

That is: whomever first notices it needs to drop everything, and follow it around until it is fixed, right that very minute. I don’t care if that means getting a mechanic out of bed, I don’t care if it means a station manager needing to go buy spare parts on his credit card…

If you screw it up, people will die… unless you’re *really* lucky.

Sure, that stuff is all painful, and expensive, and annoying, and time-consuming. So’s attending funerals and paying off on wrongful-death suits.

We use the phrase life-safety for a very specific reason: to focus people’s attention on the fact that *every link in the chain* has to work, or someone might get killed *and it might be your fault*.

This doesn’t belong on the people in the truck, by and large; it belongs on people who make (or fail to make) policy that will prevent it from happening.
</rant>

The phortog/driver assumes they will always check it before they leave the scene.

As we’ve seen it takes only one time.

Now two people are affected for life, two families are traumatized and a newsroom is left in shock and a $400,000 truck is lost.

Absolutely not! When these mistakes happen, the operators place everyone around them at risk of serious injury or death. To think this accident is an “internal issue” is not only crazy, it’s just stupid.