Two Studies Augment NHTSA’s Crash Data on Deaths Involving Medium, Heavy Trucks

This story appears in the Dec. 9 print edition of Transport Topics.

When the federal government reported last month that U.S. truck-involved fatalities crept up by 3.7% in 2012 over the previous year, American Trucking Associations labeled the report “incomplete and misleading” because large trucks were grouped with smaller ones.

The report defined “large” as all Class 3-8 commercial vehicles.

But two other reports issued earlier this year break down the fatality and accident statistics with greater precision, focusing on the operating habits and accident results from major subgroups within the 11.8 million Class 3-8 U.S. trucks currently registered.

“Large-truck crash statistics understate the safety improvements realized by the heavy-duty truck population [Classes 7 and 8] over the 10-year analysis period,” an American Transportation Research Institute study said after review of the Class 3-8 figures from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

“Perhaps more importantly, declines in medium-duty truck safety [Class 3-6] are concealed,” said the May report from ATRI, an affiliate of ATA.

The National Transportation Safety Board also looked at the issue and separated single-unit trucks, or straight trucks, from tractor-trailer combination vehicles and recommended that many regulations currently aimed at tractor-trailers should be extended to heavy- and medium-duty straight trucks.

“Although single-unit trucks comprise 3% of registered motor vehicles and 4% of miles traveled, they are involved in 9% of fatalities among passenger-vehicle occupants in multivehicle crashes,” NTSB said in June.

Most straight trucks are Class 3-6 vehicles, but there are also some heavy-duty straight trucks, mainly very large dump trucks, concrete mixers, refuse vehicles and fire trucks.

NHTSA’s big-picture number on large trucks, Classes 3-8, is part of its overall report on highway safety, which is dominated by automobile accidents.

The agency also breaks out truck-involved fatalities and found them to be on the rise for three years to 3,921 in 2012 since hitting a low point of 3,380 in 2009.

The recent numbers still are an improvement over 1996-2001, when truck-involved fatalities topped 5,100 a year for six straight years.

However, ATRI and NTSB researchers found that Class 8 trucks often weigh 80,000 pounds when loaded with freight, whereas a Class 3 truck — 10,001 to 14,000 pounds gross vehicle weight rating — would be a super-duty pickup truck, a small city-delivery truck or a small walk-in van.

Registration data from the quarterly Polk Commercial Vehicle report by IHS Automotive showed that of the 11.8 million Class 3-8 U.S. trucks in operation Sept. 30, 5.17 million, or 43.8%, were in Classes 3-6, and 6.63 million, or 56.2%, were in the Class 7-8 heavy-duty sector.

“You need to separate out trucks by type according to their difference in operational characteristics,” ATRI re-search associate David Pierce said. ATRI examined the number of truck-involved accidents that produced at least one fatality rather than the total number of people who died. It used a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration database rather than NHTSA’s.

ATRI found that from 2000-2011, heavy-duty trucks were much more likely to be involved in a fatal crash than were medium-duty trucks. The heavy-duty accidents ranged between 1,870 and 2,589 a year, whereas for medium-duties the annual range was 392 to 685.

“Heavy-duty trucks have greater exposure to crashes because of more miles traveled than medium-duty trucks,” Pierce said of the spread. He also noted that there has been an increase of almost two fatal heavy-duty crashes a year, but for medium-duty trucks the increase was 27.5 a year.

ATRI also used the FMCSA data to create three truck-involved crash-rate indexes that look at fatal crashes, injury-only crashes and combined crashes over time, using experiences from 2000 as a base level of 100 and then comparing results through 2010. Pierce said the indexes include not just the raw numbers for accidents but also vehicle-miles traveled, which have been increasing over time.

On all three indexes, heavy-duty trucks did better over time and did better than medium-duty trucks.

On the Fatal Crash-Rate Index, medium-duty trucks did improve to a level below 90 in 2010, but heavy-duty trucks moved to 70. On the injury-only and combined crash-rate indexes, medium-duty trucks moved to readings of 140 or more, and heavy-duty trucks trimmed rates to 80 or less.

Class 7-8 drivers need a commercial driver license, or CDL, to operate their vehicles, while Class 3-6 medium-duty drivers can use a basic driver’s license with no specialized training.

The NTSB study analyzed truck-involved crashes, Classes 3-8, from 2005 through 2009 and used straight trucks versus tractor-trailers as its starting point.

It recommended that many of the rules covering tractor-trailers should be expanded to straight trucks, especially concerning  visibility and under-ride guards. Since the 1990s, new tractors and trailers have had to be marked with lights and reflective tape so as to be made conspicuous.

Trailers also have mandatory rear under-ride guards, but straight trucks do not have to carry either, NTSB said. The board also recommended that FMCSA consider mandating a CDL requirement for Class 6 trucks and maybe even smaller vehicles.