& crashin’

Private waste hauler accidents soar, spurring call for new regs

COMMERCIAL trash collectors drive like garbage, a new report shows.

Crashes involving private sanitation trucks have doubled in the last two years, highlighting the need for stricter regulations of the industry where drivers often work long hours on grueling routes, according to a report by Transportation Alternatives and a coalition of groups advocating for reform.

The analysis of federal Department of Transportation data found that the 20 largest waste haulers in the city were involved in 35 crashes between March 2014 and February 2016, including two fatal crashes.

Since March 2016, the top 20 trash haulers were involved in 67 crashes, including five fatalities.

“Poor safety practices and reckless driving come with real human cost,” the report co-published by Transform Don’t Trash NYC reads.

In July, a driver for the city’s largest private garbage company, Action Carting, fatally struck a cyclist in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The driver was not charged.

Commercial collectors’ woeful record is in contrast to declining traffic fatalities citywide. Last year, 214 people — 101 of them pedestrians — died in crashes. That’s compared to 299 deaths — 184 of them pedestrians — killed in 2013.

Justin Wood, an attorney with New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, said that the industry is plagued by exhausted drivers on shifts as long as 18 hours.

“There’s enormous pressure on the driver…That translates into pressure to speed, to run red lights. Then you have a huge amount of really long shifts,” said Wood, who wrote the report.

The report says the most obvious fix is a transition to a system in which companies vie for collection zones — as they do in other major cities. A city commission is studying the issue.

Currently, trucks must reach customers scattered around the city.

Commercial trash haulers in other major American cities do not have comparable records. The largest companies in New York experience over three times more crashes per driver than drivers in Los Angeles, Seattle and San Francisco, according to the report.

Wood said the city should tell commercial companies that safety records will influence bids for collection zones, once they are implemented.

“That motivates companies to start investing in this now,” Wood said.

Driver of this garbage truck was ruled not at fault in this grisly Bronx crash last April that killed a 3-year-old. But it was one of 67 crashes and five fatalities in the city in last two years involving private haulers.