Life has never been the same for Steve Owings. His two sons were stuck in a bad traffic jam when a trucker, asleep at the wheel, slammed into them from behind. Cullum, the older of the two, was killed.
That was more than 10 years ago. Many people are impelled by tragedy to take a stand, to begin a quest to right the wrongs that caused the tragedy. But not all of them stay with it. Steve Owings isn’t just staying with his campaign to slow down trucks and regulate drivers. The Buckhead financial planner has been living it for more than a decade, heading a single-minded and sometimes lonely campaign to stop the carnage on the highways.
Bill Torpy had written about Owings’ quest many years ago, and the accident that seriously injured Tracy Morgan brought Owings to mind. So Torpy revisited the Buckhead dad and found that, if anything, Owings is even more determined today. He spends part of his life in Washington these days, lobbying, pushing, hoping.
“You drive as fast as you can get away with for as long as you can get away with it and you’ll make the most money,” Owings said, referring to the pay-per-mile model that dominates the industry. “We have the equivalent of two major airline crashes a month. Where’s the outcry? It’s insane.”
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