FMCSA Seeks More Accurate Data About Truck-Involved Fatalities
By Sean McNally, Senior Reporter
This story appears in the Feb. 18 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
John Hill, head of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, said his agency was working to craft more precise data on truck-related fatalities that could pinpoint the number of deaths attributable to the actions of truck drivers.
Hill’s statement came several days after American Trucking Associations released a data analysis showing that three major indices for truck safety showed improvement in 2006.
“I’m trying to refine the data that we presently use, because I think it is inappropriate to judge our safety efforts on causes of crashes that are not the fault of a commercial driver,” Hill said. “What we should be doing is measuring the effectiveness just of our truck-safety programs. I submit to you that commercial motor vehicle regulations don’t have a lot of applicability to passenger vehicles.
“If a car makes a serious or egregious error and a truck runs over it, that shouldn’t count against our safety agenda,” he said, “but it should not be dismissed, either.”
FMCSA’s data currently can’t assign fault to crashes, Hill said, but the agency is “trying to build that into our processes . . . and you’ll be seeing more that in the next year.”
The drive to improve data, he said, has its genesis in SafeStat, FMCSA’s controversial safety rating program. By working to improve that program, Hill said, the agency is also looking to collect and analyze data more effectively.
“We are looking at the possibility of setting up analysts within jurisdictions that would specifically analyze the preventability of all commercial vehicle crashes,” Hill said.
That analysis would then be used to determine fault, and crashes that could not have been prevented by the actions of the truck will be left out.
“I don’t think we ought to be counting those,” he said.
Hill added that the goal of the project wasn’t to replace current measures of safety but rather to provide new and improved tools to the mix.
“I wouldn’t envision a whole new set of measures,” he said, “but it certainly would be one we can add to the ones we currently use.”
The new tool, Hill said, would be used to better target the carriers causing crashes, and he would “want people in the outside world to see how many of these crashes are not the fault of the truck.”
FMCSA’s 2006 Large Truck Crash Causation Study revealed that, in crashes involving a car and a truck, the car driver is at fault 56% of the time (3-27-06, p. 1).
Hill made his comments shortly after ATA released the results of a study of data from the Department of Transportation that showed the fatal crash rate for large trucks had fallen to 1.93 per 100 million miles traveled in 2006 — a record low, besting the previous mark of 1.97 per 100 million miles in 2002.
ATA’s report confirmed an analysis done by Transport Topics in December that showed the fatal crash rate had fallen to 1.94 per 100 million miles (12-17, p. 1). TT’s figure was based on preliminary data on truck miles traveled.
The difference between the figures stems from a revision in the number of miles traveled in 2006, from a preliminary figure of 223.3 billion miles to a revised figure of 223.5 billion.
The adjustment did not affect the rate of truck-related fatalities, which was 2.24 per 100 million in both analyses, down from 2.35 in 2005.
ATA also reported that the truck involvement rate, or the number of trucks involved in fatal crashes, fell to 2.12 per 100 million miles in 2006, down from 2.21 the previous year.
“These figures illustrate the effectiveness of the trucking industry’s continuous efforts to increase safety on the nation’s highways,” ATA President Bill Graves said in a statement.
Hill said the improvement could be attributed to a several factors, including increased enforcement efforts by FMCSA and state law enforcement agencies and a slowing economy.
Steve Keppler, director of policy and programs for the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, said he was pleased with the improvements, but more needs to be done.
“We always like to see the trend going down,” he told TT, “but we can’t lose sight of the absolute numbers, because every life means something.”
In 2006, 4,995 people were killed in truck-related crashes, DOT said, down from the 5,212 killed in 2005.
