My friend Clutch Crankshaft parked his Kenworth against the curb in the Coffee Time parking lot and strolled across the XTL Transport trailer maintenance yard toward my office. I didn’t have much time for lunch this afternoon, I explained. We were working on a story about the stretch of Hwy. 401 between London and Windsor, Ont., made notorious by a string of accidents recently. The most horrific was a massive Sept. 3, 1999, pileup that burned so hot it melted the asphalt. An Ontario coroner’s jury investigating the crash produced a list of 25 recommendations to improve safety on the highway.

Oh, they’re nice ideas, all 25, I said: the province should pave the shoulders, put up weather warning beacons, crack down on speeding. I grabbed my coat off the back of the door and we started down the hallway.

“‘Should,'” Clutch snorted. “Mama Crankshaft once told me I should eat my asparagus-or else I’d be scrubbing potatoes before dinner and pots after. That was the meaning of ‘should’ in my house.”

I assured him we knew better. We’ve seen enough wish lists from blue-ribbon panels and task forces. We wanted to focus the story on real-world ideas readers can use right now to improve safety on the 401.

“Hmm, let me guess: govern your speed, spec smart, and give your drivers the freedom to make good decisions,” Clutch said with a smirk as he stepped into the donut shop. I almost took back my lunch offer. “I guess it doesn’t hurt to hear it again, but by now we all know what we have to do if we want to be safe. Shoot, if you don’t know by now, you don’t belong in this business.”

So tell me this, I urged. Why, after all these years, do I still have to tolerate lamentations about impossible delivery schedules, loading equipment unsuited for a third-world port, cold meals (accompanied by even colder shoulders) at home?

“Discipline, Steve,” he said. “Dispatchers, shop managers, guys in ties-what they lack is the discipline to apply what they know on a consistent basis. Maybe they’re too lazy to do something about that heat-checked brake drum. Or they cave in to a customer’s whim: I’m convinced that the sales staff at a trucking company has more influence over accident rates than the safety department. Nine times outta 10, compromising safety is a conscious choice.”

Drivers are no different, I reminded him. Even tough-minded guys let their concentration slip, and heaven help the youngsters, especially on that stretch of the 401. You get through the tangle of red tape at the border, stutter-step through 14 stoplights in Windsor, and then break away onto one of the most monotonous strips of asphalt on the continent.

The fact is, human beings don’t always do what they know is right.

Clutch nodded in agreement as he poured not two but three creams into his coffee. “Without discipline, we get sloppy,” he said. “And when we make mistakes in this industry, some are bound to be high-profile.”

The trouble is, one day a blue-ribbon task force somewhere is going to produce recommendations with teeth, like it or not.

And maybe that’s best. I repeated what Clutch said about “If you don’t know by now how to operate safely, then you don’t belong in this business.”

Clutch sucked the cream and coffee out of his double-barreled swizzle stick. If the safety message still isn’t getting through, then maybe new laws and harsher penalties are the answer. “There are two brands of discipline: the kind imposed upon you and the kind you impose upon yourself,” he said. “When we get right down to it, the choice is ours to make.”