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Trucks, Safety Issues and

According to U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) statistics, overall traffic fatalities decreased in 2011 for the second consecutive year while truck crash fatalities increased, especially in the truck occupant category, which recorded a 20 percent jump. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) reported that the estimated 2 million or more tractor-trailers operating in the United States represent 4 percent of all registered vehicles, but they are involved in 8 percent of all fatal collisions each year. These statistics underscore safety issues with large trucks, which pose risks to passenger vehicle occupants and truck drivers themselves. These safety issues that the trucking industry has addressed with varying degrees of success include driver health issues, especially driver fatigue, vehicle conditions, and tandem trailers.

Truck Industry Safety Issues

One of the biggest trucking industry safety issues for the public is traffic tie-ups with the attendant consequences of missed appointments, missed deliveries, missed planes, and people late for work. Truck accidents are a bigger problem to tackle, especially when spill materials have to be cleaned up or towed away. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which has been studying truck accidents for decades, estimated the costs of a single accident—a tanker flipping over while hauling 8,000 gallons of gasoline on part of the Washington, D.C., beltway in May 2011. Damages, cleanup, police and fire services, and road repairs totaled $571,789, not to mention the inconvenience for thousands of drivers.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety pinpointed 14 proposals to improve truck safety, including requiring anti-lock brakes and discouraging the trend toward larger trucks that began with the 1980 deregulation of trucking. Deregulation inspired a price war that drove down profits and required trucking companies to increase productivity to survive. With increased productivity, the same drivers had to haul larger trailers and heavier cargos.

More than 95 percent of the trailers produced were 45 feet long or less before deregulation, but by 1986 more than one-half were more than 45 feet long and another one-third were the 28-foot-long trailers used in pairs as tandems, according to the Truck Trailer Manufacturers Association. Now the trucking industry trend is triple trailers and Insurance Institute statistics show that tandem trailers are up to three times as likely to be in crashes as other big trucks because of sway and stability problems. The institute is also seeking tougher licensing rules for truckers.

Brakes

Brake Safety Week is part of the Operation Airbrake program jointly operated by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) and the FMCSA and part of an international effort to prevent truck and bus crashes to save lives throughout North America. According to a recent large crash causation study, brakes were a factor in nearly three of 10 commercial motor vehicle (CMV) crashes.

During annual Brake Safety Week inspections in the fall of 2012, the CVSA reported that in September 2012, one out of seven of 21,255 vehicles were placed out of service because of brake issues and brakes have been cited as a factor in 29.4 percent of commercial motor vehicle crashes. Stopping distances for trucks and buses are longer than for passenger cars and they increase significantly with many of the brake violations that are uncovered during the September brake inspections.

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