After the terrible atrocity in Nice, I feel compelled to speak out about truck control.

Are you aware that anyone can walk into a store and buy a truck?  Usually, there are few restrictions.  Even terrorists, the mentally ill, and Republicans can buy trucks quite easily, without much of a background check.  Over the internet, one can buy a used truck for cash and with much less scrutiny.  People even buy trucks for other people to drive – called straw truck purchases.

There is a significant business in international truck trafficking.  One can buy a truck in a foreign country, like Canada or Mexico, for example, and easily bring it into the U.S.  At certain border crossings, the trucks create so much traffic that it affects regular citizens.

In the home, trucks are often left out in the driveway where children can access them, or even worse, they can find the key and be able to turn the truck on themselves.  There are schools in America, operating right now, that for a minimal fee will teach any person with a driver’s license how to operate a truck.

Something must be done to curtail or eliminate this dangerous product.  Some ideas for solving this issue include:

• Legislating so that only manual shifting trucks are sold to the public along with taking automatic trucks off the market.
• Limiting the size of a truck’s gas tank so it can’t drive as far.
• Increasing the tax on gasoline to make it less affordable to truck drivers.
• Having a fingerprint key lock so a truck can only be operated by its owner.

Although major trucking associations have vigorously objected to this truck control initiative, we believe that truck control is vital to public safety.

Leo Levinson is CEO of GroupLevinson Public Relations and an advocate of critical thinking and rationality in America.