Many truck accidents result in substantial property damage or personal injury, including broken bones, brain injury, or death.

Large trucks, including tractor trailers, with a gross weight more than 10,000 pounds account for a disproportionately large share of traffic deaths based on miles traveled. Fatalities from 18 wheelers or tractor trailer crashes increased approximately 10 percent from 1995 through 1998, moving up from 4,918 deaths in 1995 to 5,374 deaths in 1998. The 5,374 deaths in 1998 represented thirteen percent of all traffic fatalities.

The fatal crash rate for semi-trucks is 2.6 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. This staggering statistic is more than 50 percent greater than the rate for all vehicles on the roads. Tractor trailers and large trucks (including 18 wheelers) are also more likely to get into multiple vehicle accidents, nearly 80 percent of all large truck accidents involve more than one vehicle

"Since the late 1970s, approximately 12 to 13 percent of all traffic-related fatal crashes were the result of a crash involving a large truck."

Federal regulations allow drivers of large trucks to drive up to 16 hours a day. However, under the regulations drivers can drive 60 hours in less than five days by alternating ten hours of maximum permitted continuous driving with the minimum eight hours off duty. Surveys reveal that many drivers of 18 wheelers violate the regulations on hours of service.

Studies also show that driver fatigue plays a role in tractor trailer wrecks and that drivers are more likely to crash after many long hours of driving.  The Department of Transportation has recently adopted a new version hours-of-service rules. However, consumer groups and highway safety advocates believe the trucking industry weakened the change to a degree that still allows fatigued truckers on the road.

TRUCKING ACCIDENT STATISTICS

• An average of about 5,000 trucks are involved in a fatal traffic accident each year.
• Tractors pulling one semitrailer are the most common truck configuration involved in accidents, accounting for about 60% of all trucks involved in a fatal accident.
• Texas, California, and Florida had the greatest number of truck collisions over the period 1996 to 2000.
• The number of persons killed in accidents involving a truck decreased to 5,567 in 2000, compared with an average of 5,647 from 1997-1999.
• The number of truck drivers killed in traffic accidents increased from 658 in 1998 to 713 in 2000.
• About 430 bystanders are killed each year in traffic accidents involving trucks.

Click Here, For More Trucking Accident Statistics

Contact the Lowe Law Firm headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri to discuss your truck accident injury. We will meet with you at your convenience for a FREE CONSULTATION.

Toll Free: (877) 678-3400

WE DO NOT CHARGE A FEE UNLESS WE RECOVER FINANCIAL COMPENSATION FOR YOU.

Serving Missouri, Illinois and most other states nationwide.