Editorial: Trucking Safety Improves

The number of truck-related highway fatalities declined again last year, both in terms of the absolute number and as a ratio of the total number of miles driven.

Preliminary numbers released last week by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration show that there were 55 fewer deaths in accidents involving trucks during 2000, for a total of 5,307. Between 1998 and 1999, truck-related fatalities declined by 33.

The industry’s improvement came even as overall highway deaths rose, from 41,611 in 1999 to 41,800, according to NHTSA.

“We’re proud of this improving record,” said Walter B. McCormick Jr., president of American Trucking Associations. “The aggressive pursuit of highway safety by our motor carriers and their professional truck drivers is ‘job one’ every single day. The new numbers prove that we’re making real progress. They are motivation to work even harder for safety.”

The significance of the drop in truck-related fatalities is compounded by the expectation from all analysts that miles driven surely grew again during 2000 — miles driven by truckers have grown every year since at least 1975, according to NHTSA statistics. Official numbers on trucking’s mileage for the year won’t be available for several more months.

The fatal crash rate involving large trucks — that is, the number of fatalities for every 100 million miles of travel — has fallen from 2.4 in 1997, to 2.33 in 1998 and 2.28 in 1999. When the final numbers are in for 2000, the rate will surely have fallen again, based on these preliminary findings.

These advances have come even as overall highway congestion has grown, and despite federal statistics that show that up to 70% of fatal car-truck crashes are instigated by an error on the part of the automobile driver.

Trucking should be proud of its gains. They come in part, no doubt, because of the industry’s ever-improving programs to screen drivers, to train drivers, to utilize technological advances and to support efforts to get unsafe carriers off the road.

And we must continue our efforts to drive the total number of fatalities down. America’s highways are trucking’s workplace, and all trucking professionals know that safety is good business.

i>This editorial appears in the April 2 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.