What Percentage of Accidents Are Caused by Trucks?
In terms of raw numbers, trucks only represent around 5% of all the vehicles registered in the country, according to American Trucking Associations. That translates to around 14.33 million trucks working around the clock to ensure we deliver what we ordered to our door and store shelves stay stocked.
The volume of 18-wheelers on the road reflects the percentage of accidents caused by trucks, but that doesn’t make them any less catastrophic. A collision between a truck nearly 30x heavier than the average SUV never ends well for the SUV.
A truck accident also involves other potentially liable parties, such as the trucking company, which makes these types of crashes especially complex. Edwards Law Office, P.C., has the right truck accident attorneys to sort through facts and correctly identify who needs to be held accountable in a truck accident.
Truck Accidents in Wyoming
How does the number of truck accidents in Wyoming compare to the rest of the country? According to data collected by Forbes, Wyoming is tied with Idaho for the highest rate of car ownership, with 96.2% of households in the state owning at least one vehicle.
TruckInfo finds that in 2022 the following states are the top states with the most truck accidents:
- Texas – 19,424
- California – 13,603
- Florida – 9,243
- Pennsylvania – 7,646
- Illinois – 7,555
Where does Wyoming fall on the list? There were 1,103 truck crashes in the state in the same year.
Of those crashes, 198 resulted in injuries, and 26 resulted in fatalities.
Large Truck Crash Statistics
The National Safety Council (NSC) is dedicated to keeping everyone safe on the road. Their most recent data from 2022 shows that 5,837 large trucks were involved in fatal crashes across the country.
That represents an increase of 1.8% from 2021 and a 49% increase in the last ten years.
Diving deeper into the numbers reveals that 46.02% of those crashes occurred in urban areas and the remaining in rural areas. Additionally, 26.61% of the accidents occurred on interstate roadways and 73.39% on non-interstate roadways.
Despite what you might assume, the majority of those accidents (61.3%) occurred during the daytime, and the months with the highest numbers were September (494) and October (497).
Why Truck Accidents Are Complex
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) regulates the trucking industry. This agency sets the service hours, inspection requirements, and standards for loading cargo. When a truck is involved in an accident, the FMCSA conducts its own inspection to determine whether the truck driver followed the regulations.
Those regulations extend to the trucking company that hired the driver and set the schedule.
Often, trucking companies exert pressure on their drivers to make deliveries, regardless of potential delays on the road. An experienced truck accident attorney can determine if the practices of a trucking company played a role in the accident. The trucking company will be named as a defendant in a lawsuit if that can be established.
There can also be an issue with how the cargo was packed onto the truck. Cargo crews are separate from the truck driver but must also follow the regulations. A cargo that isn’t properly secured could shift on an incline or around a sharp curb. If that causes the accident, that crew can also be named as an at-fault party.
Truck drivers are supposed to maintain records that detail their driving time and manifest.
Those records can be collected by an attorney and used to support your claim. This type of investigation would be extremely difficult to do on your own, especially if you’re recovering from injuries.
If you’ve been injured in an accident with a truck, you’re not just another statistic. You are entitled to seek a remedy for your losses, and Edwards Law Office, P.C. stands ready to help you.
Call to set up a free consultation to discuss what happened.