International warming is actual and it’s beginning to influence some points of on a regular basis life. Take bundle deliveries. Drivers are going through report warmth to get individuals their issues on time, however with out air-conditioning of their vehicles it’s proving to be harmful, as one Texas UPS driver not too long ago discovered.
Dallas-Fort Value Fox 4 experiences {that a} UPS driver handed out from the warmth over the weekend whereas behind the wheel of his UPS bundle automotive. The world is at present beneath an extreme warmth warning and temperatures have reached harmful ranges for individuals who principally work exterior.
On August 18, driver Henry Huynh captured footage of the UPS van barreling down the Sam Rayburn freeway. Huynh spoke with FOX 4 about what he noticed:
The automotive simply saved going left, left, left after which as soon as that pink automotive comes passing him I’m like, oh you realize, that is critical. And as soon as growth he hits the tree, I’m like that is critical,” stated Henry Huynh who took the video.
Huynh instructed Fox that after the truck hit the tree, he regarded over and noticed that the driving force was unconscious. Authorities investigating the incident wouldn’t verify something, however solely stated that there a medical incident occurred and the UPS driver was taken to a neighborhood hospital.
A short while later, David Reeves, the President and Principal Officer for the Teamsters Native 767 Union that represents UPS drivers, confirmed that the driving force had suffered from a heat-related sickness. Reeves referred to as what occurred harmful and unacceptable.
This might have been a really harmful state of affairs for the driving force together with most of the people. The difficulty we have now is as soon as considered one of our drivers explains to the corporate that they’ve extreme heat-related accidents, they must be shut down for the day. That is unacceptable.
In a press release to Fox 4, UPS stated it’s working with authorities and investigating the incident. The motive force reportedly knowledgeable his managers at UPS he wasn’t feeling nicely earlier than the crash occurred. The corporate dodged one of many largest questions of all: Was the driving force required to proceed driving even after telling the corporate that they felt ailing?
Harmful circumstances in UPS vehicles have been a difficulty for the previous few years and UPS has been dragging its ft. Again in ’22, the corporate basically stated it wasn’t going to put in air-con items in vehicles. A contract negotiation a 12 months later introduced what regarded like a win between the corporate and the Teamsters when the corporate agreed to purchase new vehicles with cooling items Nonetheless, a 12 months later the corporate hasn’t bought a single one.
UPS claims over 200,000 followers have been put in in vehicles, but it surely failed to say that these followers solely come after particular person driver requests — and I say that as a former UPS worker. UPS drivers additionally aren’t the one ones who’ve it unhealthy. Postal service employees have been going by the identical factor, with some even claiming that managers are denying them air-con for his or her mail vehicles.
Within the American South, in our overheated local weather, air conditioners are as non-negotiable as heaters are for Northern drivers within the winter. Driving whereas affected by warmth exhaustion can have actual penalties. Simply final per week, a driver within the strategy of dying from warmth exhaustion bought into his automotive and, in his confusion, drove off a cliff. He later died because of the warmth, not the crash.
