It’s common-sense speculation that reckless truck drivers are the most likely to cause accidents. There is new evidence to back up this assumption.
Truck Driver Crash Predictor
The American Transportation Research Institute is a nonprofit organization that conducts transportation-related research. It has a tool called the Crash Predictor Model that projects the chances which truck drivers will be involved in crashes based on their driving behaviors. Earlier this summer the ATRI updated this research and announced its new findings as to which truck drivers are most likely to crash. This is the third iteration of the study; the previous two being in 2005 and 2011.
The tool is thorough, as it included nearly 440,000 truckers over a two-year period in creating its profiles for dangerous truck drivers. This version includes commercial truck crashes in 2013 and 2014.
In this new two-year study period, truck drivers were involved in just under 32,000 crashes – 729 of which were fatal truck accidents. However, only 7 percent of the truckers in the study were responsible for the total number of crashes.
So which truckers were the most likely to be involved in accidents? Truck drivers who were cited for reckless driving in the past were 114 percent more likely to crash in the future, according to the 2018 Crash Predictor Model. Just behind in terms of who was most likely to crash were truckers who failed to yield the right of way. The chances for crashing jumped 104 percent for those truck drivers.
Truck Driver Actions That Cause Accidents
Other careless truck driver behaviors found to increase the odds for truck crashes were:
· Failure to remain in proper lane
· Improper passing
· Failure to use signals
Male truck drivers were 20 percent more likely to crash than their female counterparts. That is not surprising as the study found male truckers were 88 percent more likely to previously have been cited for reckless driving than women truckers.
So it’s clear that when truckers are careless behind the wheel they are likely to crash. Negligent truckers must be held responsible for their actions. But their employers may also be responsible when they knowingly put dangerous truck drivers – those with checkered pasts – on the road.
If you lost a loved one or you were seriously injured in a crash involving a large commercial truck, speak with a truck accident lawyer, who can conduct a thorough investigation to identify all those responsible.
The choice of a lawyer is an important decision that should not be based solely on advertisements.
Authored by Gray Ritter Graham, posted in Blog August 22, 2018
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