Federal regulators and Maryland state police are planning a “top-to-bottom” review of the safety record of a waste-removal company owned by a trucker who was seriously hurt this week when a CSX freight train hit his truck at an unmarked crossing, the Baltimore Sun reported.

A new study of large truck crash data shows that the number of crashes involving smaller commercial vehicles and intrastate motor carriers is increasing at a faster rate than crashes involving larger trucks and interstate motor carriers.

American Trucking Associations Vice Chairman Phil Byrd said Tuesday that law enforcement agencies must do more to focus on the unsafe behavior of drivers, both commercial and noncommercial, in order to achieve safety improvements.

As many as three of every four crashes involving cars and heavy trucks are caused by automobile “driver factors” such as speeding or failure to stay in a lane, according to a report released last week by American Trucking Associations.

Truck-involved highway fatalities inched up 1.9% to 3,757 in 2011 from 3,686 the year before, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported last week.

The Department of Transportation Tuesday helped launch a road test of new technology system designed to help avoid crashes.

Electronic sensors and enforcement are being credited as reducing the number of truck related crashes in Washington State, the Associated Press reported.

Roughly one-third of the 3,446 truck drivers involved in fatal accidents in 2010 were cited in police accident reports for such contributing “driver-related factors” as speeding, fatigue and inattention, a senior federal transportation researcher said.

American Trucking Associations last week called on the industry’s chief federal regulator to release the results of a study that the group said could buttress the case for using police reports to determine who is at fault in truck-related crashes.

Royce Brooks, an experienced tank truck driver, was hauling gasoline to Lockhart, Texas, south of Austin, when a BMW driver blew through a stop sign and a flashing red light.