Side guards are barriers installed on the side of trucks to prevent vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclists from sliding under the truck during a side-impact collision. Side guards can result in a 40% reduction in fatalities compared to trucks without this
Technologies like surround cameras, safety lights, automatic braking systems, and additional mirrors can reduce fatalities and injuries. These and other technologies adopted as part of the City of New York’s Safe Fleet Transition Plan for City fleet vehicles can also improve safety for private garbage trucks.
A 2019 law requires the sanitation department to create 20 “commercial waste zones,” and assign as many as three private haulers as the only companies that can pick up garbage from businesses in each area. The new regime was meant to crack down on duplicative routes, safety issues around the current system, and reduce the emissions (between 34% and 62%) of pollutants most closely linked to respiratory illnesses created by truck's exhaust
“Many existing routes are geographically dispersed, often serving several neighborhoods across multiple boroughs,” the study said. “Routes from the same and different carters often overlap along key routes and neighborhood streets, creating duplicative services across the city. For many routes, garages and transfer stations are far from the core service area of the route.”
IAW New York City’s Business Integrity Commission Local Law 145 of 2013, 6,000 heavy-duty vehicles have until Jan. 1 2019 to comply with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 2007 diesel emissions standards.
The commission said that about 30% of trucks covered under the law don’t make the grade. While most trucks that have to meet the new emissions standards handle construction materials and debris, among them are about 1,850 that collect commercial waste, recyclables, medical and food waste, and junk.
In Los Angeles, for example, every private garbage truck is required to be “clean-burning,” using fuel like compressed natural gas.
If the same standard were applied in New York City, less than 0.1% of private garbage trucks — only five of nearly 6,000 — would be street-ready, Moore said.
Private garbage trucks travel more than 23 million miles in New York City every year, a 2016 city Department of Sanitation and Business Integrity Commission study found.
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