The American Transportation Research Institute Releases Study on Predicting Truck Crash Involvement
Posted on Fri, Apr 29, 2011 @ 07:59 AM
Truck-involved accidents happen for a variety of reasons, but some of these causes are more likely to bring about an accident than others. Everyone knows the major causes such as speeding, drunk driving, fatigued driving, and distracted driving, but what if there was a way to predict the likeliness of accidents based on truckers’ previous convictions for driving offenses?
The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) used data from the Motor Carrier Management Information System (MCMIS) and the Commercial Drivers License Information System (CDLIS) to calculate how likely a driver was to crash after he or she had had a violation of some sort. Driver data was gathered from a two-year time frame (2008-2009) and analyzed across those years to determine the future crash predictability of violations, convictions and crashes which occurred the previous year.
The ATRI’s study was based on data from 587,772 U.S. truck drivers. “The analysis shows that a ‘failure to use/improper signal’ conviction was the leading conviction associated with an increased likelihood of a future crash.” When drivers are convicted of this offense they become 96% more likely to be involved in a crash. The rest of the top 5 violations rounded out like this: a past crash (88%), improper passing violation (88%), improper turn conviction (84%), and improper or erratic lane change conviction (80%).
The study listed 5 other significant factors that ranged between 60% and 70% increased likelihood. The top 5 all have one thing in common: a driver’s blind spots. Because trucks are so much larger than other vehicles they have bigger blind spots and therefore cannot see other, smaller vehicles. Sometimes a crash is not always the trucker’s fault because drivers have to be aware of these blind spots and know to avoid them.
Even though 2010 reported the lowest number of fatalities since 1949, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) still believes they can outdo themselves in terms of crashes by continually improving highway safety. ATRI’s research should prove very beneficial in improving highway safety, especially when it comes to trucking accidents. Their numbers can provide bases on which to create regulations that will reprimand repeat offenders to deter them from committing the same, accident-increasing violations. If there is a bigger penalty for repeat offenders then drivers will be less likely to make the same careless mistake twice.