Trucks Involved in 11 Percent of all Fatal Road Crashes in U.S.: Study

Crashes involving trucks are more devastating than other road accidents. Every year trucks are responsible for nearly 4,500 deaths alone in the United Sates, according to a latest study.

Truck crashes cause a huge loss in productivity as well as property. According to the latest study, trucks are responsible for almost 8 percent of the U.S. highway traffic and also the cause of almost 11 percent of fatal road crashes. The results were produced after analyzing data from  Tennessee truck crashes that took place over a period of 5 years in relation to different environmental factors. The outcome of the severity of the crash was determined using a model.

Prior to this, studies conducted revealed that the severity of crash is directly linked to drug and alcohol abuse. In this study, researchers examined nearly 1,134 crashes in which 101 were single vehicles and 1,033 were multi-vehicles crashes.

Categories of crash severity were divided into couched property damage only, non-incapacitating injury, incapacitating injury and fatal. Further, the factors affecting the crash were also categorized into traffic, driver, and vehicle, environmental and geometric. Also 15 traffic factors were considered that varied from speed, condition of the driver, characteristics of the vehicle, location and many more.

They noticed that the percentage of truck on the road was the main factor in influencing the severity of the crash so much so that even in low traffic volume, higher percentage of trucks doubled the risk of fatal accidents.

Another significant factor in determining the severity of crash was speed. As the speed increased the severity of the crash also increased. The risk of the fatal crash doubled when speed increased above 45 mph. Also male drivers have higher chances of fatal crashes. The longer combination trucks were at a higher risk of severe crash due to the restricted right hand side view of driver.

Above all, weather was the significant environmental factor. Rise in rainy weather increased the risk of severe crash. Extreme weather conditions like snow doubles the risk of crash.

The study was published in the International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion.

 Read the full article online:www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17457300.2013.844713.