ATA Reports Significant Truck Safety Improvement
Oliver B. Stone
Washington Editor
Trucking achieved a majorimprovement in highway safety in 2002, according to the American Trucking Assns.
Using statistics from the Department of Transportation, ATA calculated that the fatal crash rate for large trucks was 1.9 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled — an 11% reduction from the previous year.
ATA said that this is the lowest rate since DOT began keeping records in 1975.
The official DOT fatal crash rate has not yet been released, but the data for the calculation — truck-involved highway fatalities and truck vehicle miles traveled — is available, said Darrin Roth, director of highway operations at ATA.
The ATA analysis indicates continuing safety improvement for the industry. Fatalities in truck crashes have gone down each year since 1997, declining 9% overall.
ATA credits the industry's focus on safety for the improvement. "The trucking industry and our drivers continue to work hard every mile, every day to make our highways safer," said ATA President Bill Graves. "Their commitment is making a difference."
It also is likely that the toughening of federal and state safety enforcement efforts contributed to the improvement. Among other changes in the past five years, the government has enacted tighter restrictions on the commercial driver's license and heftier fines for safety violations, and has improved its data systems.
"When we see that commercial vehicle fatalities are the only classification of vehicle that has a downward trend, I say we are doing the right things," said FMCSA Administrator Annette Sandberg in an interview late last year.
The agency's goal is to reduce fatalities by 41% from 1996 to 2008 to a rate of about 1.65 fatalities per 100 million commercial vehicle miles. The current large truck fatality rate is 2.3.
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