New Truck Accident Study: Technology May Prevent Thousands of Crashes Annually

 Posted on October 12,2017 in Personal Injury

Many DuPage County residents know how dangerous and often deadly a collision with a large truck can be. Truck accidents happen more often than they should. Whether you regularly commute to work in Chicago and share I-88 or I-290 with semi-trucks transporting goods across the country, or if you are simply headed to a retail establishment at Oakbrook Center, you know that big rigs are much larger and heavier than passenger cars. To be sure, large trucks can cause devastating damage when they collide with smaller passenger vehicles.

According to a recent study conducted by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, if more 18-wheelers were equipped with safety technology, we could prevent more than 60,000 crashes annually.

Large Truck Collisions Are On the Rise

The study begins from a significant data point: large truck accidents are on the rise. Between 2014 and 2015, semi-truck crashes increased by 4 percent. While that number might not sound noteworthy, it means that numbers rose to 400,000 crashes in 2015 that led to 4,000 fatalities and 116,000 nonfatal injuries.

What can we do to prevent these collisions from happening and to reduce the number of deadly large truck crashes?

While there are many factors that affect the rate of semi-truck collisions, one solution for reducing the rate of crashes is to install “cost-effective technologies that improve safety for everyone on the road.”

Indeed, the AAA study found that “the benefits of adding many of these technologies to trucks clearly outweigh the cost.” What are those new technologies? There are four of them that were the subjects of the study:

• Lane departure warning systems;
• Automatic emergency braking;
• Air disc brakes; and
• Video-based onboard safety monitoring systems.

Some of those technologies, especially lane departure warning systems, will be familiar to automobile drivers who have recently purchased cars with advanced safety features. Others listed above are tailored to issues affecting truckers and 18-wheelers.

Getting the Facts About Large Trucks and Technology

The AAA report, entitled, Leveraging Large Truck Technology and Engineering to Realize Safety Gains, reported the following facts about how technology in semis can help to save lives:

• Lane departure warning systems prevent up to 6,372 crashes each year, resulting in 1,342 fewer nonfatal injuries and 115fewer deaths on an annual basis;
• Video-based onboard safety monitoring systems have the capacity to prevent up to 63,000 collisions, resulting in more than 17,000 fewer injuries and nearly 300 fewer deaths;
• Automatic braking systems in large trucks may reduce the number of crashes by nearly 5,300, meaning that there could be 2,753 fewer injuries and 55 fewer deaths each year; and
• Air disc brakes may be able to reduce the rate of large truck accidents by 2,411 collisions, which would lead to 1,447 fewer injuries and 37 fewer deaths on an annual basis.

AAA has found that passenger car drivers feel less safe when they are passing large trucks or driving near them. Most people cited the large size of trucks as a major safety concern, while others discussed concerns about truckers’ blind spots, as well as the likelihood of a truck swerving or drifting out of its lane.

Contact a DuPage County Truck Accident Lawyer

If you or someone you love got hurt in a truck accident, a DuPage County truck accident attorney can help. Contact Mevorah & Giglio Law Offices today to discuss your case.

Source:

http://newsroom.aaa.com/2017/09/truck-safety-technology-can-prevent-63000-crashes-year/