Truck-Involved Fatality Rate Drops 12 Percent

The truck-involved fatality rate in 2008 declined 12.3% to 1.86 per 100 million miles from 2.12 per 100 million miles in 2007, according to truck vehicle miles traveled (VMT) figures just released by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), and previously released National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) data on crashes. This decline marks the largest year-to-year drop and the fifth consecutive year the fatality rate has improved.

Since new Hours-of-Service regulations took effect in 2005, the truck-involved fatality rate has come down more than 20% and is at its lowest since the U.S. Department of Transportation began keeping those records in 1975. The fatality rate has declined more than 66% since 1975.

Persons injured in large truck crashes went from 44.4 per 100 million miles to 39.6, an 11% reduction. Injury rates are based on the FHWA’s figures that report VMT by truck increased in 2008 to 227.45 billion miles from 227.06 billion in 2007. During that same time, NHTSA reports that the actual number of truck-involved injuries fell to 90,000 from 101,000.

Data on truck-involved fatal crashes can be found here: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811172.pdf.

Vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by truck can be found here: http://www.truckline.com/Newsroom/Industry%20Documents/2008%20VMT.pdf