Heavy Trucks

Executive Summary

Introduction

The AASHTO Strategic Highway Safety Plan identified 22 goals to be pursued to achieve a significant reduction in highway crash fatalities. One of the hallmarks of the plan is to approach safety problems in a comprehensive manner. The range of strategies available in the guides will ultimately cover various aspects of the road user, the highway, the vehicle, the environment, and the management system. The guides strongly encourage the user to develop a program to tackle a particular emphasis area from each of these perspectives in a coordinated manner. To facilitate such use, the online form of the material uses hypertext linkages to enable seamless integration of various approaches to a given problem. As more guides are developed for other emphasis areas, the extent and usefulness of this form of implementation will become ever more apparent.

AASHTO’s overall goal is to move away from independent activities of engineers, law enforcement, educators, judges, and other highway safety specialists, and to move to coordinated efforts. The implementation process outlined in the series of guides promotes the formation of working groups and alliances that represent all of the elements of the safety system. The working groups and alliances can draw upon their combined expertise to reach the bottom-line goal of targeted reduction of crashes and fatalities associated with a particular emphasis area.

Goal 12 in the Strategic Highway Safety Plan is Making Truck Travel Safer. Truck safety is the result of many interacting factors, some more directly under state control than others. However, even those aspects of trucking that fall primarily into the private sector (motor carriers, shippers, and receivers) fall under the jurisdiction of state and federal regulations. Both the regulations and their enforcement can affect truck safety.

Heavy-truck crashes, especially those involving other vehicles, are likely to result in serious injury. Because heavy-truck crashes have a variety of causes, a comprehensive effort to reduce them must focus on a range of targets, including behavioral, environmental, and operational targets. Effective solutions will require broad-based cooperation and the participation of both public and private entities. The private sector—the trucking industry and the many motor carriers composing it—plays the most fundamental role of managing carrier compliance with regulations and implementing safety processes beyond compliance that further enhance carrier safety. Federal, state, and local governments also play essential roles, focusing largely on regulation and enforcement, but also involving engineering and educational initiatives. In particular, state leadership and support can make a major difference in reducing truck crashes and resulting injury and death.

General Description of the Problem

The 2001 statistics from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) show that, of 42,116 persons killed in motor vehicle crashes in the United States, 5,082, or 12.1 percent, were in crashes involving heavy trucks, defined as having a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 10,001 pounds or more (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration [FMCSA], 2003a). One in eight traffic fatalities involved a heavy truck. Of these, most involved large trucks with a GVWR greater than 26,000 pounds. Heavy trucks have continued to account for between 12 and 13 percent of all traffic fatalities, with the largest proportion occurring to persons outside the truck (mostly occupants of other vehicles, but also nonoccupants, e.g., pedestrians and bicyclists). In 2001 there were also about 131,000 persons injured in heavy-truck crashes; again, most of these injuries were to persons other than the truck occupants. Although large-truck involvement in fatal crashes has decreased from 5.0 per hundred vehicle-miles traveled (VMT) in 1980 to 2.1 per 100 million VMT in 2001, this rate is still much higher than that for passenger vehicles, which was 1.3 in 2001 (FMCSA, 2003a). Exhibit I-1 shows the distribution of fatalities in large-truck crashes in 2001.

EXHIBIT I-1
Fatalities in Crashes Involving Large Trucks, 2001
(FMCSA, 2003a)

Victim Type	Number	% of Total
Occupants of Large Trucks	702	14
Single Vehicle	392	8
Multiple Vehicle	310	6
Occupants of Other Vehicles in Crashes Involving Large Trucks	3,953	78
Nonoccupants (Pedestrians, Pedal Cyclists, etc.)	427	8
Total	5,082	100

Yet drivers of heavy trucks appear to engage in fewer unsafe driving practices than do drivers in general. Analysis of driver-related factors in crashes between large trucks and passenger vehicles indicates that passenger vehicle driver errors or other driver factors are cited in more than two-thirds of these crashes, whereas truck driver errors are cited in less than one-third (FHWA, 1999c; Blower, 1999). Studies of vehicle highway speeds in North America indicate that drivers of heavy vehicles generally exceed posted speed limits less often, and by smaller margins, than drivers of light vehicles (Tardif, 2003; NHTSA, 1991). In addition, crash-involved truck drivers are much less likely than passenger vehicle drivers to drive under the influence of alcohol.

Even though truck drivers appear to be better drivers than those of other vehicles, truck crashes are more likely to result in fatality because of the vehicle’s size, weight, and stiffness. In 1999, heavy trucks accounted for 4 percent of all registered vehicles and 8 percent of total vehicle-miles traveled, but they accounted for 9 percent of all vehicles involved in fatal crashes (NHTSA, 2001). Thus, heavy trucks are overrepresented in fatal crashes. Compared with passenger cars, when a heavy truck is involved in a crash, it is about 2.6 times as likely to result in a fatality. The average overall human and property “harm” in large-truck crashes is about twice the average of crashes involving only passenger vehicles (Wang et al., 1999). Heavy-truck crashes account for 23 percent of passenger vehicle occupant deaths in multivehicle crashes and 12 percent of all passenger vehicle occupant deaths (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 2001). The factors contributing to truck crashes are many and include other drivers, truck driver errors, environmental characteristics, vehicle condition, and operational practices.

Exhibit I-2 shows the proportion of each vehicle type in crashes and in registered vehicles for 1999.

Exhibit I-2
Vehicle Type by Crash Severity and Registered Vehicles (NHTSA, 2001)

Objectives of the Emphasis Area

To reduce the number of heavy-truck fatality crashes, the objectives should include the following:

• Reduce truck driver fatigue.
• Strengthen commercial driver’s license (CDL) requirements and enforcement.
• Increase public knowledge about sharing the road.
• Improve maintenance of heavy trucks.
• Identify and correct unsafe roadway and operational characteristics.
• Improve and enhance truck safety data.
• Promote industry safety initiatives.

Explanation of Objectives

In general, safety can be enhanced by improvements to drivers, vehicles, or the roadway environment. In the case of truck safety, improved fleet safety management by motor carriers is an additional desirable focus. This report describes a variety of initiatives relating to all four focus areas; most are interventions likely to be implemented by state DOTs or departments of motor vehicles (DMVs). Truck crashes can be lessened by reducing the number of tired truck drivers (e.g., increasing the efficiency of existing parking spaces, creating additional parking spaces, and incorporating rumble strips into new or existing roadways to alert fatigued drivers who wander out of traffic lane); strengthening CDL requirements and enforcement (e.g., strengthening CDL testing procedures and increasing fraud detection with both state and third-party testers); increasing general knowledge of how to share the road with trucks (e.g., incorporating Share the Road information into driver materials and promulgating Share the Road information through print and electronic media); improving the maintenance of trucks (e.g., promoting regular preventive maintenance and conducting postcrash inspections to identify major problems and problem conditions); identifying and correcting unsafe roadway infrastructure and operational characteristics (e.g., identifying and correcting unsafe roadway configurations, installing interactive truck rollover signing, and modifying speed limits and increasing enforcement to reduce speeds); improving and enhancing truck safety data (e.g., increasing the timeliness, accuracy, and completeness of truck safety data); and promoting industry safety initiatives (e.g., including vehicle-based safety technologies and carrier safety management improvements).

Exhibit I-3 lists the objectives and several related strategies for reducing heavy-truck crashes. Details of these strategies are covered in the following narrative. Of course, this does not represent a listing of all possible strategies to reduce heavy-truck crashes. Many other activities occurring in the states are aimed at improving truck safety. However, each of the strategies included here either is currently in use by one or more states or has a sound rationale for implementing the strategy, e.g., data that support the measure.

EXHIBIT I-3
Emphasis Area Objectives and Strategies

Objectives	Strategies
12.1 A Reduce fatigue-related crashes	12.1 A1 Increase efficiency of use of existing parking spaces 12.1 A2 Create additional parking spaces 12.1 A3 Incorporate rumble strips into new and existing roadways
12.1 B Strengthen CDL program	12.1 B1 Improve test administration for the CDL 12.1 B2 Increase fraud detection of state and third-party testers
12.1 C Increase knowledge re: sharing the road	12.1 C1 Incorporate Share the Road information into driver materials 12.1 C2 Promulgate Share the Road information through print and electronic media
12.1 D Improve maintenance of heavy trucks	12.1 D1 Increase and strengthen truck maintenance programs and inspection performance 12.1 D2 Conduct postcrash inspections to identify major problems and problem conditions
12.1 E Identify and correct unsafe roadway infrastructure and operational characteristics	12.1 E1 Identify and treat truck crash roadway segments—signing 12.1 E2 Install interactive truck rollover signing 12.1 E3 Modify speed limits and increase enforcement to reduce truck and other vehicle speeds
12.1 F Improve and enhance truck safety data	12.1 F1 Increase the timeliness, accuracy, and completeness of truck safety data
12.1 G Promote industry safety initiatives	12.1 G1 Perform safety consultations with carrier safety management 12.1 G2 Promote development and deployment of truck safety technologies

Targets of the Objectives

Objective 12.1 A, reduce fatigue-related crashes, would primarily be implemented by state DOTs, which are responsible for building and operating driver rest areas along Interstates and other major highways. Strengthening the CDL program, Objective 12.1 B, will require action primarily on the part of state licensing agencies (usually DMVs). Objective 12.1 C, increasing knowledge on sharing the road with other vehicles, is aimed at drivers of both commercial vehicles and personal vehicles, but especially the latter, since there is strong evidence that, in car-truck crashes, the driver of the car is much more likely to be the precipitating factor. Objective 12.1 D, improving the maintenance of heavy trucks, is aimed at state enforcement and crash investigation. Objective 12.1 E, identifying and correcting unsafe roadway infrastructure and operational characteristics, will primarily be the responsibility of state DOTs and local governments. Objective 12.1 F, improve and enhance truck safety data, can be instated by states, local governments, and motor carriers. Finally, Objective 12.1 G, promoting industry safety initiatives, is for use by the trucking industry, including manufacturers and motor carriers, as well as state agencies interfacing with motor carriers.