Reckless four-wheelers, bad road design…: Two factors, among others, in many truck rollovers

The good news is, after the stats came in for calendar-year 2013, truck-occupant crash deaths are down by a small margin, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. I know, I know, some have a problem with what exactly “large truck” means in NHTSA’s annual crash-death reports. But given that vehicle-miles-traveled estimates continue to rise with the improving economy nationwide (creating more traffic, more unpredictable four-wheelers in and around drivers’ lanes), I’m inclined to read the stats as indeed somewhat good news for operator safety.

Here are the raw numbers:

As you can see, they remained high compared to years 2009-10, but hopefully this translates to a trend in the numbers through 2014 — we won’t have those stats from NHTSA for quite a while — lower and lower. Something to keep an eye on.

Overall for crash fatality statistics, truck-involved fatalities rose slightly in 2013, according to NHTSA, from 3,944 to 3,964 deaths, including those truck occupants. The total number of truck-involved accident injuries, however, was down substantially in 2013 — a 9 percent decline to 95,000. Again, here’s hoping it continues.

The Chicago Tribune recently ran this story via Bloomberg exploring antiquated highway off-ramps and cloverleaf intersections and how they might be contributing to truck-driver deaths. Part of the story leads into exploration of the hold-up of NHTSA’s work on a rule to mandate Electronic Stability Control in new trucks, which Bendix reps at the Mid-America Trucking Show last week speculated would be on the books this year.

Bendix director of government affairs Fred Andersky: electronic stability control mandate final rule: "will come out this year"