AAA: Truck safety technology could prevent 63,000 crashes a year

New research by AAA says crashes involving large commercial trucks could be cut by more than 15 percent if they were equipped with cost-effective safety technology.

The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety says in 2015, large trucks were involved in more than 400,000 crashes that killed 4,000 and injured 116,000.

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The report looked at the safety benefits and costs of installing four advanced safety technologies in both existing and new large trucks.

Researchers found that the safety benefits of equipping all new and existing large trucks with lane departure warning and video-based onboard safety monitoring systems far outweighed the costs:

• Lane departure warning systems - can prevent up to 6,372 crashes, 1,342 injuries and 115 deaths each year.
• Video-based onboard safety monitoring systems - can prevent as many as 63,000 crashes, 17,733 injuries and 293 deaths each year.

Researchers found that safety benefits of equipping all new trucks with automatic braking or air disc brakes could outweigh costs:

• Automatic emergency braking can prevent up to 5,294 crashes, 2,753 injuries and 55 deaths each year.
• Air disc brakes can prevent up to 2,411 crashes, 1,447 injuries and 37 deaths each year.

Consumers shared their opinions about large trucks during a recent survey by the organization.

Six out of ten drivers, or 61 percent, said they feel less safe driving past large commercial trucks than driving past passenger cars.

The top three reasons are:

• The trucks' large size and length (28 percent)
• Trucks have greater blind spots/less visibility (18 percent)
• Trucks can drift or swerve out of their lane (14 percent)

The survey said that about one in four (26 percent) U.S. adults say adding safety technology to large trucks would help them feel safer about sharing the road with large trucks.

But AAA said that both professional truck drivers and motorists have a mutual responsibility to safely share the road. AAA said when traveling near a large truck, drivers should:

• Be aware that trucks have large blind spots or "no-zones." As a rule of thumb, if you cannot see the driver in the truck's side view mirror, they cannot see you.
• Leave plenty of room between your vehicle and a truck when coming to a stop on a hill. Trucks may roll back as the driver takes his or her foot off the brake.
• Avoid speeding up when a truck is passing. Slow down and give the truck driver plenty of room to pass.
• Follow trucks at a safe distance.
• Allow plenty of space for a truck driver who is signaling to change lanes.

Cox Media Group