Ok...why is it that people with disabilities have to go after companies like ours?? We dont even make these rules, as it is a state/federal law that everyone who drives a commercial vehicle MUST pass a hearing test per the DOT. As a driver, I have to rely on my hearing EVERY time Im in my truck. Sure, we have camera systems in them for sight help, but whats gonna help when someone yells to us about a child behind a truck, for us NOT to back up??? Or when a car blows its horn to us to communicate in traffic??
People like this amaze me...my wife, who is partial deaf from, can even agree with me on this....what do you guys think??? Heres the article.....
UPS violated anti-discrimination laws by barring deaf and hearing-impaired workers from driving delivery trucks, a federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled Tuesday.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that the world's largest delivery firm violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by prohibiting deaf and hearing-impaired workers from becoming UPS drivers.
UPS officials said late Tuesday they are considering an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"We believe this case is about safety," said Norman Black, a UPS spokesman. "It has nothing to do with disability or discrimination."
UPS requires all its drivers to meet Department of Transportation standards for commercial licenses that include vision and hearing tests. Those requirements apply to vehicles weighing 10,000 pounds or more — but the court ruled UPS should allow deaf and hearing-impaired workers to drive lighter vehicles.
UPS officials said the vast majority of vehicles in their 90,000-vehicle ground fleet weigh more than 10,000 pounds.
"We have no idea how much it would cost to comply with this ruling," Black said. "But this is a bedrock safety issue for us. We want to apply the highest uniform safety standards."
The class-action case covers about 1,000 would-be drivers now performing other jobs for UPS.
"While UPS offered anecdotal testimony involving situations where a driver avoided an accident because he or she heard a warning sound, the company . . . failed to show that those accidents would not also have been avoided by a deaf driver who was compensated for his or her loss of hearing by, for example, adapting modified driving techniques or using compensatory devices such as backing cameras or additional mirrors." Judge Marsha Berzon wrote for a three-judge panel.
Disability Rights Advocates represented current or former UPS employees passed over for driving jobs.
"We are obviously ecstatic over the ruling," said Todd Schneider, a lawyer who worked with the Berkeley, Calif., plaintiffs' group. "Each deaf person has to be assessed individually to make a determination, just like a hearing person, as to whether they can safely drive a UPS truck. That's all we ever asked."
Unless it is appealed, the ruling resolves the last issue in a 1999 lawsuit by five deaf UPS employees.
UPS agreed to a $10 million settlement in the case in 2003 that required the company to track promotions for deaf and hearing-impaired workers and make sure job applicants have access to interpreters. The company also agreed to provide text telephones and vibrating pagers to alert disabled workers to emergencies and evacuations.
The U.S. Supreme Court has generally sided with transportation company safety concerns in recent Americans with Disabilities Act cases involving drivers with one eye or high blood pressure and pilots with vision loss.
UPS said it has been committed to hiring and promoting disabled workers for 30 years.
"Our company-wide efforts began in the 1970s," Black said, "long before the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990."
— The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Derek
Pvt.
D.Smith
A04/TQ1.0.62147E1
Name: Chris "FNG" Chulamanis
Status: Missing in Action
Mission: Bring him back alive....no matter the cost.
|
And it seems it's contaminated the culture: sue before you think. Kinda reminiscent of the Athenian Republic, really. They manage to sue pretty much all of their great men into either death or exile... 
