The New Large Truck Crash Statistics Report is Out. What Do the Numbers Reveal?

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has released its Large Truck and Bus Crash Facts report for 2017. The FMCSA gathers data for traffic accidents involving 18-wheelers, tractor trailers and other larger, commercial trucks, commercial buses, and school buses. This annual report reviews and analyzes statistics and reports on how many crashes occurred, how many vehicles were involved in the crashes, whether there were injuries or fatalities, what factors contributed to causing the accident, etc. Overall, the FMCSA is looking to identify trends in the data and learn what they can from the accidents that did occur to help prevent future crashes from occurring.

Why would the driving public care about truck crash stats?

Drivers must share the road with every kind of large commercial vehicle, so it can be helpful to know some of the facts around what causes truck accidents so that they can modify their driving habits if necessary, to do their part to avoid those factors wherever possible. Driver error is the biggest factor in causing all types of motor vehicle crashes. Anything that was caused by an error is something that could have been prevented.

Here are some of the highlights of the latest crash data from the FMCSA:

• There were approximately 450,000 police-reported crashes involving large trucks. One percent of those (4,237) were fatal and 344,000 (23%) had injuries.
• Fatal crashes involving large trucks often occur in rural areas and on interstate highways. About 57% of fatal crashes involving trucks occurred in rural areas while 27% occurred on interstate highways and 13% straddled both categories by occurring on interstate highways in rural areas.
• Fatal truck crashes occur most often at night (between 6pm and 6am) with 35% of fatal crashes and 22% of injury crashes occurring at night or in the early, pre-dawn hours of the morning.
• The vast majority of fatal crashes (83%) and nonfatal crashes (88%) involving large trucks occurred on weekdays.
• Thirty percent of work zone fatal crashes and 12% of work zone injury crashes involved at least one large truck.
• The number of large trucks in fatal crashes increased by ten percent in 2017, and the number of large trucks involved in injury crashes also increased.

If you have been injured in a truck accident that was caused by someone else’s negligence, the Chicago truck accident lawyers at Gainsberg Injury and Accident Lawyers can help you recover the compensation you need.

Here at Gainsberg Injury and Accident Lawyers, we have the knowledge and experience and have represented many, many passengers that have been in car accidents. Please – if you’ve been in an accident or been injured in an accident, call 312-600-9585 or fill out our contact form and schedule a free consultation with us today.