AMERICAN TRUCKING ASSOCIATIONS

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• Over the past 20 years (from 1986 to 2006) there has been a 41 percent increase in registered large trucks and an 84 percent increase in miles traveled by large trucks.

• Over the same time period, the number of large trucks involved in fatal crashes has declined by 5 percent, and the vehicle involvement rate for large trucks in fatal crashes has declined by more than 41 percent.

• In 2006, the large truck fatal crash rate was a record low 1.93 fatal crashes per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, compared with 2.03 fatal crashes per 100 million vehicle miles in 2005. This has decreased from 4.58 in 1975, the first year the USDOT began keeping records.

• Over the past decade alone, the large truck fatal crash rate dropped by 14 percent.

• Large truck crash-related injuries are at the lowest level in over a decade.

• In 2006, the large truck-involved injury crash rate fell to its lowest rate since USDOT began keeping statistics.

• AAA found in July 2002 that 80 percent of crashes were caused by car drivers.

• In fatal crashes involving a car and a large truck, 35 percent of the time the crash occurred in one of the four blind spots surrounding large trucks.

• In 2006, rear-end collisions where passenger cars strike large trucks were 2.7 times more likely than large trucks rear-ending passenger cars.

• Head-on collisions where passenger cars encroach into the truck’s lane are more than 10 times more likely to occur than vice-versa.

• The trucking industry has a zero tolerance standard in place for drug and alcohol use. The latest violation rate for alcohol use on the job, based on random alcohol testing of truck drivers, is just one-tenth of one percent (0.1 percent).

• In fact, alcohol involvement for large truck drivers in fatal crashes has declined by 80 percent over the past 20 years.

• For all fatal large truck crashes, the FMCSA estimates fatigue to be a primary factor in only 8.0 percent.