Bragging Rights:
Kari Fisher is a truck driver advocate, concerned about the safety and wellness of professional drivers. She began her advocacy for trucking when she started going over the road with husband, Lee Fisher. She realized that sharing the road with other vehicles was a difficult task for professional drivers, to say the least. CDL drivers have to contend with the fact that automobiles and other non CMV’s have little knowledge regarding how to drive around trucks. It made her realize that the way she was driving near trucks was wrong, and no one ever told her differently. Her desire to decrease the accident fatality rate involving large trucks led her to create the FaceBook page “Share the Road”, educating and creating awareness to the general public. Kari began posting educational material that she had found on the FMCSA website, “Share the Road.” Her mission was to get this information out to the general public. She believed it was this information informing people how to drive around trucks which would save lives, rather than more regulations for professional truck drivers, who are among the safest in the world. Kari became more involved with trucking and social media, utilizing its power to voice her concerns with others. She soon began receiving friend requests from many truckers on FB, resulting in involvement with many heated trucking discussions. Jason’s Law and the need for more safe truck parking was one of those intense social media conversations. Kari started her journey of writing letters to Washington, making her plea for more safe truck parking, and continually becoming more involved with heated topics and issues. On February 3rd, 2012 a tragic event changed Kari’s life as her advocacy took another turn. Kari was asked to help a women, Jonda Williams, find her husband Marc Williams. Marc had been missing for days and without a GPS, there was no way to detect where he could be. Kari posted the alert on her “Share the Road” discussion group and began making phone calls to law enforcement agencies and sharing the information with others on FaceBook. The power of social media, combined with genuine brotherhood and concern of many began to unfold. Truck driver, Hal Kiah, who was also helping Kari during the search for Marc Williams, posted about the missing driver on a popular forum, giving details and description of the driver, truck, and the route he was on. It wasn’t long before the missing driver was found, unfortunately deceased in his truck. Professional driver, Brandt Geiger had heard about the missing driver and recognized the missing truck. Kari realized that there was a tremendous need to create an alert system for missing truck drivers within the industry. Statistics indicate that there are many drivers who have gone missing for days, weeks, and even months, before being found. Creating such an alert system for drivers could not only locate missing drivers, but it could possibly save a life and with hard work and dedication, the Missing Truck Driver Alert Network was founded.