In The News

Truck-involved fatality rate declines 5.8% in 2007

ARLINGTON, Va. — Figures recently released by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) indicate that the truck-involved fatality rate in 2007 declined 5.8 percent to 2.12 per 100 million miles from 2.25 per 100 million miles in 2006.

Since new Hours of Service regulations took effect in 2005, the truck-involved fatality rate has come down more than 10 percent and is at its lowest since records began to be kept in 1975.

"This achievement is great for all of us who travel our nation's highways," stated Bill Graves, president and CEO of the American Trucking Associations (ATA). "The trucking industry remains committed to safety and ATA will continue to advance its aggressive safety agenda in an effort to continue this outstanding trend."

The truck-involved fatal crash rate and the truck-occupant fatality rate also declined from 2006 to 2007. The truck-involved fatal crash rate declined 4.5 percent to 1.85 per 100 million miles and the truck-occupant fatality rate declined 1.98 percent to 0.35 per 100 million miles.

These crash rates are based on the FHWA's figures that report vehicle miles traveled by truck increased in 2007 to 226.96 billion miles from 222.5 billion in 2006. During that same time, the actual number of truck-involved fatal crashes fell to 4,190 from 4,321.

Access data on truck-involved fatal crashes can be found here.

Access vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by truck can be found here.

Augmenting an established platform of successful safety initiatives, ATA unveiled a bold highway safety agenda in October 2008 designed to further reduce the number of highway-related fatalities and injuries for all drivers on the nation's highways.

The 18 safety recommendations include promoting greater safety belt use by commercial drivers; re-instituting a national maximum speed limit; speed governing of all trucks; and a decade-long initiative to create a national clearinghouse for drug and alcohol test results.

The Trucker staff can be reached for comment at [email protected].