WASHINGTON, D.C. – At the four-day “Sorrow to Strength” conference, the Truck Safety Coalition — a partnership between outspoken special interest groups Public Citizen, the Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways (CRASH), and Parents Against Tired Truckers (P.A.T.T) — ranked each U.S. state in terms of truck fatalities and issued a “report card” that graded the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) on 10 key truck safety issues.
According to trucking critics, the FMCSA scored 9 of 10 Fs on a truck safety ‘report card.’
The groups gave the FMCSA an “F” grade on nine of the 10 listed subjects, including: conducting safety compliance reviews of motor carriers; meeting deadlines and mandates to issue safety rules; issuing HOS rules that improve truck driver safety; keeping the southern U.S. border closed to Mexico-domiciled trucks “until it is safe”; and using technologies like Electronic On-Board Recorders to enforce driver HOS rules.
As for individual states, Wyoming (6.09 deaths in heavy truck crashes per 100,000 residents) and Arkansas (4.17) ranked highest in truck-related fatalities, according to the coalition. They were followed by Oklahoma at 3.41, New Mexico at 3.27, Mississippi at 3.12, and West Virginia at 3.03. The safest state, Rhode Island, had 0.09 fatalities per 100,000 residents, followed by Massachusetts at 0.38, Connecticut at 0.48, District of Columbia at 0.54, Hawaii at 0.71, Alaska at 0.75, New York at 0.76, New Hampshire at 0.84, and Delaware at 0.95.
However, the coalition does not distinguish the number of crashes that were the fault of the trucker, nor the percentage of truck-related fatalities in the total vehicle crash fatality rate. Government statistics repeatedly show that in car-truck crashes on North American highways, the car driver is far more likely to be at fault. In 73 percent of cases and no factors to the truck drivers in 73 percent of all the cases.
