Based on statistics from attorneys of truck accidents and lawyers for car accident injuries, the total number of people killed in car accidents was more than 36,000. Truck accidents are much less common than car accidents, but much more destructive. Because of their size and heavy weight, truck accidents cause more serious damage and worse injuries than a typical car accident. Are commercial trucks and large platforms more dangerous than cars and other passenger vehicles? Although there are more car accidents than truck accidents every year, a side-by-side comparison of cars with commercial trucks reveals that trucks are often the more dangerous of the two.
In recent years, there has been an overall decrease of 2% compared to car accidents in general. However, this is not the case for larger cargo trucks, with the largest increase in the number of accidents recorded in trucks weighing between 10,000 and 14,000 pounds. Mortality rate increased by 5.8% specifically with tractor-trailers, exceeding 26,000 pounds in weight. The number of actual vehicle and truck occupant deaths per mile traveled per truck has declined in recent years, especially compared to 1975, when fatal accident data were initially collected.
The numbers changed from 916 fatalities among occupants of large trucks and 2,757 deaths among occupants of vehicles per 81,330 truck miles to 683 and 2,797 deaths, respectively, for every 297,593 truck miles traveled. Large platform accidents suffer a fatal collision with a vehicle in 74% of all crashes, 81% of all injury cases and 76% of all property damage cases. In other words, the first damaging event that occurs during a crash involving large trucks is precisely the collision with another vehicle. Of all fatalities from accidents involving large trucks, occupants of passenger vehicles potentially involved in accidents accounted for 2,797 deaths (68%).
On the other hand, truck occupants accounted for 17%, or 683 deaths, while only 14% of all deaths were recorded among pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists involved in such large truck accidents (580 deaths). Single-vehicle crashes and casualties are much more common in semi-trailer accidents, as the nature of the vehicle generates multiple hazards on its own. In contrast, occupants of passenger vehicles suffered death in 46% of cases, with more casualties caused by multi-vehicle crashes. As for vehicles involved in fatal crashes, only 17% of fatal truck accidents occurred in single-vehicle cases, compared to 37% for vehicles.
The most common fatal crashes for both trucks and passenger vehicles involved two vehicles (62% and 45% of all fatal crashes, respectively). Unfortunately, trucks are also more prone to rollover accidents than standard passenger cars. All tractor-trailers have a higher center of gravity. In emergency maneuvers (such as swerving at high speeds to avoid an obstacle), trucks are much more likely to tip over crushing passenger vehicles.
Truck drivers have a disproportionately high accident rate per driver compared to other license holders. Truckers make up 0.008% of all licensed drivers, but are involved in 8% of all car accidents in. In other words, a commercial truck driver is a thousand times more likely to suffer an accident than the average driver. While this is partly due to the large number of miles a truck driver travels in a year, it's clear that the number of crashes is disproportionately high.
Just as trucks can cause more serious damage to your vehicle in small collisions, they can also cause more serious injuries. This is because you will be hit by a truck that weighs several tons more than the standard car. That extra weight creates additional force during the accident and puts a greater strain on the body even in low-speed collisions. This results in more serious injuries to both drivers and passengers.
A large number of laws and regulations govern the trucking industry, affecting how truck accidents are investigated and how liability is determined. The lawyers at The Barnes Firm want to draw your attention to some of these statistics and point out some significant differences between a typical car accident and commercial truck accidents. About 2 million drivers in car accidents suffer permanent injuries each year, and about 130,000 people are injured each year in truck collisions. While the large truck accident causality study says that drivers of passenger vehicles are, in general, more often at fault in collisions with commercial trucks, there are several causes of accidents that are more likely to be the fault of the truck driver.
Unless the truck driver acted irresponsibly on the road, he may not be responsible for the accident. These statistics give trucking companies more reason to try to blame passenger car driving after truck-car collisions. An Oakland Law Firm Specializing in Car Accidents, Truck Accidents, Motorcycle Accidents, Personal Injury Accidents, and Bad Faith Insurance Claims. Truck driver accident reports are just one of the recorded forms of crashes that occur in the U.S.
UU. If you've been in a truck accident recently and feel tired of being mistreated by the insurance company, don't leave it to chance. That means there's a 1 in 5 chance that any truck driver will be involved in an accident every year on the job. No matter how minor the accident is, you can expect more damage and higher repair costs after a truck accident.
However, you don't need to be a truck driver to consider accident rates for semi-trailers or learn more about the most common defects of such tractor-trailers. . .
