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Are commercial vehicle operators, and motor carriers, safer now than they were 100 years ago? How about 40 years ago? |
The quick answer is yes and no; there are more crashes per million miles, but fewer fatalities. The trucks aren’t being operated more safely, but the cars are safer, because of seat belts, air bags and other safety features. This is the work of the National Highway Transportation Safety Agency, (NHTSA) who regulates the manufacturers. To answer the question fully, we have to look at fatality rates for cars as well as trucks. People in cars still get hurt in “car vs truck” crashes. But not as much now as decades ago – fatality rates for automobiles in crashes have fallen dramatically. What we want to focus on is truck-involved crashes. I think trucks have more wrecks now than they did in 1992, but the DOT is focused on fatalities, and the numbers are generally moving in the right direction. So far everything I’ve said is common knowledge. About 10-12 years ago I reviewed some literature and statistics and verified everything I just said. |
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A couple weeks ago I read an article that said there are lots of illegal aliens with counterfeit or illegally-obtained CDLs driving all over in trucks; they make it hard for honest people to make a living because they basically live in the trucks. I’ve seen evidence of this in the most-recent 20 years. If you are an honest company paying honest wages this makes it hard to compete. And, according to that story, in many cases the illegals don’t speak English, and they have more wrecks and fatalities. I cannot verify this comment about crash frequency, nor can I contradict it today; I plan to do some research into the topic because I’m curious. And I think you want to know. I think the current pro-law-enforcement mood of our country may put a little pressure on driver availability, if there are illegal immigrants driving CDL trucks and some of them are deported. Here are some data points that tend to confirm we are moving in the right direction: From the National Safety Council: “In 1913, 33.38 people died for every 10,000 vehicles on the road. In 2023, the death rate was 1.57 per 10,000 vehicles, a 95% improvement.” That sounds like progress. According to data from the FMCSA, fatalities per million miles have dropped consistently for more than 40 years. |
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Year | Fatalities | Million miles | Fatalities/million 1975 | 4,032 | 1,327,664 | 0.00304 1985 | 5,153 | 1,774,826 | 0.00290 1995 | 4,456 | 2,422,696 | 0.00184 2005 | 4,805 | 2,989,430 | 0.00161 2015 | 3,864 | 3,095,373 | 0.00125 I’m going to keep studying the available data to see if there has been an uptick in the most-recent 5 years. I also plan to study accident frequency and cost if I can find the data. I think we have more accidents now, and they cost more. Does anyone want to place a wager on the outcome of my continued analysis? Let’s meet back here next week and compare notes. Sincerely, Mike England |
