And yet when it comes to the operation of those big machines, the federal government seems to have forgotten that there are actual people behind the wheel. Drivers are largely regulated by the Department of Transportation, through the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, not the Department of Labor. That allows the government to address highway safety through things like maximum driving hours, mandatory rest times and annual physicals.

Such steps are meant to keep our roads safe, and they indirectly help drivers. But it also leaves them exposed to inhumane and demeaning work conditions, including abusive amounts of surveillance and micromanaging. Truckers are told what route to take, where to buy gas and for how much, when and where to sleep. They work 14-hour days routinely and continuously, often without weekends, sick pay or holiday pay. They drive 11 of those hours, and perform other work for the remaining three: loading, vehicle maintenance and a lot of waiting.

This mistreatment doesn’t just harm the drivers. By forcing experienced workers to leave the industry, it leads employers to hire younger and less capable drivers. Under pressure from the industry, last month the Senate approved a pilot program that will allow 18-year-olds to drive semis across state lines, even though the 18- to 21-year-old demographic has one of the highest accident rates.

It also undermines truck-safety rules themselves: As long as drivers aren’t behind the wheel, the Department of Transportation lets employers do what they want with their drivers — which usually means they get back on the road unrested and irritated, hardly the person you want driving an 18-wheeler.

None of this is a secret; drivers have been raising concerns for years. But rather than improving working conditions and increasing requirements for rest, or regulating the companies themselves, legislators typically respond to truck-accident rates by amping up surveillance of truck drivers. Often speed is “governed,” with the truck unable to go over a specific speed; in other cases a sensor measures the distance from the front of the truck to the vehicle ahead, automatically braking if the space is deemed insufficient. Some companies even have two-way cameras trained on truck drivers 24/7. (Meanwhile, a new rule limiting a trucker’s workweek to 70 hours, down from 82, has been suspended since 2014.)