NTSB Urges Small-Truck Safety Features That Match Tractor-Trailer Requirements

This story appears in the June 10 print edition of Transport Topics.

The federal agency responsible for investigating transportation accidents is pushing to have some of the same safety standards required for tractor-trailers established for smaller trucks.

In a June 5 report on single-unit trucks, the National Transportation Safety Board asked the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to require reflective tape on exterior corners, rear underride guards and improved mirrors or other devices that would improve visibility for drivers.

NTSB defines single-unit trucks as vehicles with a weight rating of more than 10,000 pounds but do not carry trailers — such as delivery, walk-in and beverage trucks — and may not be subject to all heavy-duty truck regulations.

Single-unit trucks represent only 3% of registered vehicles and 4% of the miles driven on U.S. roads, but they are involved in 9% of all traffic fatalities, the report found.

“When it comes to single-unit truck safety, we can do better for our citizens and their safety, and it’s not as complicated as changing behavior or norms,” NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman said June 4 at the hearing in Washington, where the report was released.

“That is why we are issuing safety recommendations to bring these vehicles more in line with the safety requirements of tractor-trailers, including requiring rear under-ride protection on new trucks and using methods and materials to make these vehicles more visible and conspicuous,” she said.

NTSB’s recommendation to NHTSA focused on three features required on tractor-trailers but not lighter trucks: reflective material to improve the vehicles’ visibility on dark roads, rear under-ride guards designed to mitigate collisions with smaller vehicles and technology for improved visibility by drivers, including curved mirrors that reduce blind spots.

NTSB also asked NHTSA to require under-ride guards on all other sides of single-unit trucks, and lane departure and collision avoidance warning systems. It has previously asked that NHTSA mandate those systems for all trucks, though the agency has not done so yet.

Between 2005 and 2009, when NTSB conducted its study, some 1,800 people died each year in crashes involving single-unit trucks. Crashes on average resulted in 56,000 emergency room visits, 2,500 serious injuries or deaths and 5,700 over-night hospitalizations each year, the study showed.

NTSB asked the U.S. Department of Transportation to improve its methods for measuring crash data to ensure that single-unit truck crashes are accurately counted. It said it can be difficult to count single-unit truck crashes because police investigating the crashes often misclassify the vehicles as passenger vehicles.

NTSB cannot write regulations; it can only recommend that federal agencies make changes based on the research and investigations it conducts.

“As we know and have heard many times, you cannot manage what you cannot measure,” Hersman said.

The American Transportation Research Institute published a study last month that found medium-duty trucks, those with a weight rating between 10,001 and 26,000 pounds, were involved in 4,700 crashes in 2000 and 10,100 in 2010 (6-3, p. 4). Medium-duty truck crashes are often included in total crash numbers, which can disguise the fact that heavy-duty truck crashes dropped 24.6% in that same period.

Dan Murray, vice president of research for ATRI, said NTSB’s study means that ATRI’s statistics were conservative.

“If they are accurate, it . . . means that our numbers would be considerably higher,” Murray said. “It will almost certainly make the attention on medium-duty trucks considerably higher.”

Ted Scott, director of engineering for American Trucking Associations, said he would doubt the effectiveness of NTSB’s recommendations without seeing a cost-benefit analysis.

“I just don’t think we need that kind of regulation,” he said.

NTSB records show that NHTSA told the board last year that it was researching underride risks on all sides of heavy vehicles. The agency also is researching lane-departure warning systems for passenger vehicles, with a plan to see how that research would apply to trucks.

An NHTSA spokesman said only that the agency is aware of the recommendations and will respond to the board.