This meme was posted on the Facebook page for a Texas trucking company, Stevens Transport, last week.
Is this the message that trucking companies send to tired truck drivers?
Don’t comply with federal laws.
Don’t concern yourself with anyone’s safety.

A Texas trucking company posted a meme telling drivers: “Don’t stop when you are tired. Stop when you are done!
Due to the controversy—many truck drivers joined safety advocates in expressing concern—the company pulled the Facebook post.
In a statement, a trucking company representative blamed “an intern who has been with Stevens Transport for only a few weeks and whose inexperience led him to include a message that was both tone deaf and wrong.”
Yes, Stevens Transport posted a “tone deaf ” message. It was “wrong”. It was absurd.
But it was not an anomaly.
Bill Graves is the president of the American Trucking Associations; he is a lead spokesperson for the trucking industry. In 2014, he stated:
“Many of the anti-truck groups have mischaracterized the extent to which fatigue is a part of our traffic problem.
I don’t know how the federal government polices sleep.”
So, an intern at Stevens Transport isn’t the only one underestimating the danger of sleepy truck drivers.
Driver fatigue is a real safety problem.
Here’s a sample of the truck crashes caused by sleepy drivers just in the last couple of days, since Stevens Transport removed their Facebook post:
- A “rookie” trucker fell asleep behind the wheel and hit twelve cars;
- Six people were seriously injured—including 2 children—after a tired truck driver fell asleep and struck their vehicle head-on; and
- A truck crossed a highway guardrail and crashed into another semi-truck after the driver fell asleep; at least five people were injured.
Tired truck drivers in charge of 80,000 tractor-trailers put everyone on the road at risk.
The trucking industry, from lead lobbyist down to intern, doesn’t seem to understand this danger, and that is alarming.
Leave A Comment