From the December 2016 issue
An inescapable collision with a large truck is a driver?s worst nightmare. On August 25 in Binghamton, New York, a semi hauling a load of stone plowed through 10 cars stuck in construction traffic. One car burst into flames, and an SUV was so compacted that the semi?s front license plate was mashed into the back of the driver?s headrest. Luckily, on­lookers pulled the driver from the flaming vehicle, there were no back-seat passengers in the crushed SUV, and no one in the incident died or suffered life-threatening injuries. It was just another in a recent uptick in truck crashes that is sounding alarms around the country. But pending legislation that threatens to undermine decades of progress could be what really reverses us into deadlier territory. Trucks were involved in 411,000 crashes in 2014, almost double that of 2010 when injury and fatality rates began rising, according to the latest data from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). In 2014, 3903 people (including cyclists and pedestrians) died in trucking accidents, a 6-percent increase over 2010. Truck-occupant deaths have jumped 24 percent, and injuries in trucking accidents have soared 39 percent. These figures are misleading, though. The recession slowed trucking, with crash statistics enjoying a proportional depression. The widely reported increase in crashes and fatalities roughly paces the industry?s recovery in recent years, realigning recent data with the lon...