Road Safe America Advocates Safety Tech as Truck Crashes Rise

The highway safety non-profit Road Safe America has recently looked over some federal data on large truck crash deaths in Mississippi and across the nation. The data spanned from 2009 to 2017, the latest year for which complete statistics are available, and the non-profit found that all but six states in the U.S. saw an increase in large truck crash deaths during that period.

There were 35,882 deaths. At the same time, the period from 2009 to 2016 saw a decrease in the number of miles driven by heavy commercial truck drivers. The state that saw the greatest increase was Washington, followed by Idaho, Colorado, Texas and Nevada. Incidentally, most of these states have 70 mph speed limits for commercial trucks: a speed that, according to Road Safe America, is unsafe for any vehicles weighing over 80,000 pounds.

The non-profit believes that many of these deaths could have been prevented through the use of automatic emergency braking and speed-limiting technology. The latter was once the subject of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. NHTSA and the FMCSA had collaborated on the notice back in 2016, which stated that setting a maximum speed for heavy-duty vehicles could save lives.

The initiative never got off the ground. Road Safe America is thus encouraging trucking companies to set the maximum speed to 65 mph among their fleet.

Speed limiting is an important thing to consider since truck fleet owners do not want to be accused of negligence in the wake of a truck accident. There are many forms of negligence, and driver negligence is only one of them. Victims who believe they have the grounds for a personal injury claim might get a case assessment from a lawyer. The lawyer may be able to assist with every step of filing and negotiate for a settlement.