The Nov. 14 Columbian online story “Safe driving pays off for Vancouver man” reported that “truck driver Mark Tillitt was awarded $10,000 in October from J.B. Hunt Transport for racking up 2 million miles of safe driving for the company.”
The J.B. Hunt spokeswoman Kelsey Cox said “it usually takes eight to 10 years for a driver to achieve 2 million safe miles.” How is that possible?
If a driver takes eight years to drive 2 million miles, that is an average of 250,000 miles per year. If the driver drives 250 days per year (two weeks of vacation but no holidays), driving 250,000 miles means an average of 1,000 miles per day. At eight hours per driving day, that’s averaging 125 miles per hour.
It took Tillit three times as many years, from 1987 to 2011, so he’s averaging 42 miles per hour for eight hours a day, if working 250 days per year.
