Editorial: Protecting Our Drivers

About one-third of the truck occupants who died in crashes during 2011 weren’t wearing a seat belt, according to new data coming from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

And 22% of that year’s truck-occupant victims were traveling in a vehicle that was exceeding the posted speed limit, the agency said. Also, 2% of the victims had blood-alcohol levels higher than 0.04 and 4% were otherwise impaired, mostly meaning they were fatigued.

The data provide a little insight into the disturbing news last month from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that truck-occupant deaths during 2011 rose by 20% over the prior year, even though fatal truck-involved accidents had risen by only 1.9%.

FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro last week told us that regulators were “scratching their heads” over what might have caused the spike in occupant deaths and said she wondered why so many of the victims had chosen not to engage their seat belts.

We’ve wondered about this same issue for years. And while truck-occupant seat-belt use has increased sharply in recent years, an FMCSA survey in 2010 showed that only 78% of truckers used them. That compares with the 86% usage level in passenger vehicles during 2012 that the federal government found.

It seems obvious that increased seat-belt use could help trim the death rate and that speed limit compliance would also certainly help.

But it also appears clear that other factors are also at work involving the design of existing truck cabs.

As Don Osterberg, senior vice president of safety at Schneider National, put it last week: “We need to embrace [the NHTSA data] as a red flag that really creates a platform to say we need to revisit truck safety.”

Today, there are no federal crashworthiness standards for trucks.

It’s puzzling why we would have so many government standards for passenger vehicles but fail to set minimum standards for trucks.

ATA has already sought a mandate for seat-belt use by truck drivers, a national speed limit and speed limiters for heavy-duty vehicles as ways to improve highway safety for the people who move the nation’s freight.

The nation’s truck makers have worked hard to find ways to prevent accidents.

Now we need to work with those companies to ensure that the trucks we buy from them provide the highest level of protection to our drivers when accidents occur.