Overdrive's sister fleet publication CCJ's long-running "Preventable or Not?" series examines the practice among trucking companies of making internal preventability determinations following accidents as a way to, among other things, examine the things that could have been done prior to and/or during the events of the accident to prevent the crash from occurring.
Preventability determinations, while not the same as a finding of fault in a court of law, are now following carriers large and small around via their records in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's CSA Safety Measurement System, where it's possible to have some crashes formally reviewed, as the National Safety Council has done for decades, and excluded from the record if deemed nonpreventable upon federal review.
In the video at the top here, you'll find the series reboot with just such a review that puts in high focus the difference between legal fault and preventability.
It answers the question of whether a tractor-trailer operator who hit a pickup whose driver pulled out right in front of him from a dead stop, when the professional had the right of way ... in other words a clear case of fault on the part of the pickup truck driver. While that's certain, is there any way possible such an accident could be anything other than nonpreventable? Watch the video for the National Safety Council's determination.
[Related: Preventable, or not: How to DataQ for FMCSA's crash-review program]
