What were the numbers on boiler explosions last year?
One hundred people a week are killed on the highways?!?!? It's a quagmire! We've got to pull out of the interstate highway system! Time to cut-and-run from the big rigs! And speaking of Mexican trucks - a joke, indeed. Speaking generally, they appear to have no mechanical skills whatever. I've ridden in taxis and busses in Mexico, and each time, wondered if my will were up to date or even if my body would ever be found in the wreckage. Scarey.
True, but the real cause of truck wrecks are tired drivers but not from driving. The common sense fix is to limit the number of pick ups and drops a big truck can make, open shipping and receiving docks 24 hours a day in big cities, and no loading and unloading by drivers. limit the number of hours it takes to load and unload. My niece was a driver for years, these are most of the things I've heard her bitch about.
That sucks, because no SUV is big enough in a head-on with these vehicles. We are truly at the mercy of truckers not to murder us.
Locally, one trailer took out a telephone poll a couple years ago after the driver fell asleep. He was fine... very minor injuries from that accident.
Sheesh!
Wyoming, with I-80 crossing the Continental Divide, sees more continuous truck traffic than many other states, while having a tiny population skews the figures out of any semblance of reality.
That most likely applies elsewhere, too.
Let them try rerunning the figures based on fatalities/100,000 trucker miles in each state, although that probably wouldn't push their agenda.
I drive in very congested truck traffic, along the California Big Valley and in the Bay Area. I don't want to minimize negligent truck drivers but how many of these accidents were actually caused by the truck drivers as opposed to idiotic car and SUV drivers who think trucks can stop or turn as easily as my Beemer? I don't believe a lot of drivers truly appreciate the stopping and turning limitations of fully loaded semis.
I was driving my car wondering if I would bottom out on the asphalt patches that bubbled out from inbetween the buckled cracks.
I also remember stopping for a quick bite in Arkansas and paying way too much in taxes... something like 15%?
IMO the strong majority of fatal truck crashes are caused by stupid drivers of passenger vehicles cutting the trucks off.
The Federal Highway Administration's Driver Fatigue and Alertness Study underscored how fatigue exacerbates these problems that cause truck accidents. The study showed that while most people require 7.5 to 8 hours of sleep a day, the average truck driver gets 4.8 hours of sleep, hardly enough to remain alert to avoid a truck accident.
On top of this, the National Transportation Safety Board and The National Institute on Drug Abuse found in a study that of 168 fatally injured truck drivers, one or more drugs was detected in 67% of these fatally injured truck drivers and 33% of these truck drivers had detectable blood concentrations of psychoactive drugs or alcohol.
When you combine the difficulties of driving a big truck with the incidence of fatigue and substance abuse, it is amazing that we do not have more fatal truck accidents in this country.
That's a pretty stupid way to rate safety, rates per 100,000. Of course the least populated states are most likely to have the highest per 100,000.
Rate per miles of highway, or number of trucks on the road, or number of confirmed buxom blondes in the state would make more sense.
I suspect this whole study is nothing but a bunch of garbage.
i saw a truck driver pushing a car down the freeway once in utah because the car was in his way.