Trucking improves on large crash rate, but fatalities still on rise
The latest large truck crash data from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) found that fatalities due to truck crashes inceased less than 2% year over year from 2021 to 2022. This marks a solid improvement for the industry, as the YOY change from 2020 to 2021 was a 16% rise in fatalities and 17% rise in large truck crashes.
This was based on Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) data, which reported 5,821 fatalities were related to 5,733 large trucks involved in crashes in 2021. In 2022 that number grew to 5,936 deaths and 5,837 trucks. This led to a 1.95% YOY increase in fatalities and a 1.79% increase in large-truck involvement.
But since 2009, NHTSA also reported a 75% increase in truck crash fatalities since 2009.
That has led to outcry from politicians and citizens alike, who are calling for regulatory solutions to solve the problem.
"Truck crash deaths have continued to rise over the last 10 years, demonstrating the need for safety reforms," Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC-01) told the Truck Safety Coalition in a press release. "We can and must do more to reverse the rise in truck-related injuries and fatalities."
Congresswoman Holmes Norton cited including automatic emergency braking, stronger standards for rear underride guards, and increased funding for safety programs as critical provisions to decrease truck crashes, specifically in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (H.R.3684). The congresswoman was one of the first two co-sponsors for the bill, initially brought forward by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR-4).
Whether measures that mandate automatic emergency brake systems and speed limiters would succeed is often a point of debate among the trucking industry. But what isn’t is that the number of fatalities due to large truck crashes isn’t just increasing overall, but in concentration.
On a state-by-state basis, the Truck Safety Coalition found that Texas and California topped the list with the most fatalities, at 810 and 436, respectively. This number is likely impacted by the largesse of both Texas and California’s populations, but Texas was also one of 12 states with the highest concentration of fatal truck crashes, at a rate of 2.7 deaths per 100,000 in the population. In 2022, Texas experienced 782 large trucks in fatal crashes, which accounted for 12% of the state’s total vehicles in fatal crashes in 2022 according to NHTSA.
But Texas was not one of the states with the highest concentration of deaths due to large truck crashes. Those titles go to Wyoming and New Mexico, both of whose fatality concentration is higher than the #1 and #2 spots from last year’s “Dirty Dozen” crash states. NHTSA reported that New Mexico had 99 large trucks involved in fatal crashes in 2022, which accounts for 15% of the total vehicles involved in fatal crashes and resulted in 91 deaths.
“Across New Mexico and the country, truckers and drivers deserve to be able to travel our roads safely,” Senator Luján (D-NM) told the Truck Safety Coalition. “This report is a painful reminder that we have much more work to do.”
Wyoming, meanwhile, had the highest concentration of truck crash fatalities in 2022, jumping from 3.3 per 100,000 people in 2021 to 5.1. This number resulted from 34 large trucks getting into accidents, which is 21% of total vehicles in fatal crashes, which caused 30 deaths.
