Stop Bigger Trucks

Who We Are

They’re coming: bigger, longer, heavier, deadlier trucks. Unless Congress and state legislatures take action now, these trucks will threaten more American lives and damage more of the streets, bridges, and highways we travel every day.

StopBiggerTrucks.org is sponsored by the Truck Safety Coalition — the only truck safety advocacy group comprised of truck crash survivors, as well as families and friends of those who have died as a result of these preventable tragedies. We are the only national organization dedicated solely to improving public policy on all aspects of motor carrier safety issues — the vehicle, the driver, and the roadway environment.

In 2002, Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways (CRASH) and Parents Against Tired Truckers (P.A.T.T.) combined efforts to form the Truck Safety Coalition. Our mission: Reduce the number of deaths and injuries caused by truck-related crashes; provide compassionate support to truck crash survivors and families of truck crash victims; and educate the public, government leaders, and the media about truck safety issues.

By working with other safety groups and partners that share our mission and goals, we strive to advance policies and programs that improve truck safety for everyone, as well as protect our highways and bridges from further destruction by giant, overweight trucks. We also support strong enforcement of motor carrier rules to curtail disregard for current safety regulations.

Thousands Dead and Injured

In 2007, 4,808 people died in crashes involving large trucks,¹ and 83,908 were injured.² Each person, each family, could have been spared this trauma.

That same year, 802 truck drivers died on the job — one of the highest numbers of employee deaths of all U.S. industries.³ Truck drivers are asked to adhere to unreasonable delivery schedules and denied adequate rest or time at home. Instead of asking them to drive even more dangerous rigs, the industry needs to address the serious problems that nearly 3.5 million American truck drivers face each day.⁴

Now, truck drivers and motorists alike are threatened with even greater risks by dangerous proposals for bigger, heavier trucks.

But trucking interests are fighting to put Longer Combination Vehicles (LCVs) on our roads — like triple-trailer trucks over 100 feet long and over 100,000 pounds. They also propose turnpike doubles — 120-foot double-trailer trucks weighing up to 135,000 pounds and more.

Bigger and heavier trucks are a bad idea. 80,000-pound big rigs are twice as likely to be involved in a fatal crash as trucks weighing up to 50,000 pounds.⁵ (The average car weighs around 3,250 pounds.⁶)

A Motorist's Nightmare

Compared to single-trailer trucks, double-trailer trucks are 32% more often involved in fatal crashes⁷ and 200% more likely to be in interstate highway crashes.⁸ Recent studies of heavier combination trucks, including different configurations, have concluded that there is no safety justification available for longer, heavier trucks,⁹ and that substantially increasing the sizes and weights of combination rigs would likely increase safety risks per vehicle mile traveled.¹⁰

Crashes in which truck-tractors pulling two or three trailers were involved have the highest costs of any type of truck in a fatal crash. The average cost found by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) in its 2006 truck crash cost study was $3.6 million per fatal crash for trucks with two or three trailers. And this cost estimate even excludes other societal cost figures.¹¹

At least 10% to 20% of the trucks on the road run illegally overweight.¹² Overweight trucks are not only a safety hazard, but they are also the overwhelming cause of highway and bridge destruction,¹³ resulting in billions of taxpayer dollars being wasted.¹⁴

Defective Maintenance

Big trucks are regularly operated with safety defects. A random sample found that 76% of trucks involved in crashes had broken, substandard, or defective parts.¹⁵ In both 2007 and 2008, more than one of every five trucks that were inspected was placed out of service for deficiencies that prevented it from continuing to operate.¹⁶ The Large Truck Crash Causation Study released by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) found that 29% of the trucks studied had brakes out of adjustment.¹⁷ Poorly maintained trucks are almost twice as likely to crash as properly maintained ones.¹⁸

The safety of heavy trucks has not improved compared to overall highway crash statistics.¹⁹ Our elected officials’ first priority must be to make existing trucks safer, not bigger and heavier.

4 Out Of 5 Americans Oppose ...

Eighty-two percent of Americans oppose increasing the length of big trucks.²⁰ Eighty percent of Americans agree that sharing the road with larger trucks will make driving harder.²¹

Many truck drivers are afraid to drive double or triple trailers because they are hard to control and stop. More than 80% of truck drivers agree with the statement that doubles and triples are less safe than single-trailer trucks.²²

At highway speeds, the back end of a triple nearly always swings back and forth across its lanes — even on a straight road with no wind.²³ Drivers say that in an emergency they have virtually no control over a third trailer.²⁴ When they have to make a sudden maneuver, a crack-the-whip effect produces a violent swinging that can lead to rollover and trailer separation. Also, very long combination trucks with long overhangs even present a hazard at low speeds when rounding short radius highway curves or street intersections because these big trucks often have to encroach into adjacent or opposing lanes of traffic to negotiate these roads and streets. And when a bigger, longer rig turns a corner, the rear of the trailer can swing out into other lanes of traffic.²⁵

¹ Traffic Safety Facts, Final Edition, National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA),2008
² Id.
³ Id.
⁴ American Trucking Association, ATA Recognized Professional Truck Drivers During National Truck Driver Appreciation Month, 2008.
⁵ K.L. Campbell, et al., “Analysis of Accident Rates of Heavy-Duty Vehicles,” UMTRI-88-77, University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, Ann Arbor, MI, April 1988. http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/770 (page 71).
⁶ NHTSA Spreadsheet, Passenger Care and Light Truck Fleets Characteristics. http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/rules/CAFE/NewPassengerCarFleet.htm
⁷ K.C. Campbell, “Ten Years of Large Truck Safety Research,” presented at Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association/Department of Transportation Motor Truck Research Symposium, Washington, D.C., July 18, 1990.
⁸ Stein and Jones, “Crash Involvement of Large Trucks by Configuration: A Case-Control Study,” American Journal of Public Health, May 1988, Vol. 78, No.5. http://biblioteca.universia.net/html_bura/ficha/params/id/6863920.html (page 4).
⁹ Transportation Research Board Special Report 267: Regulation of Weights, Lengths, and Widths of Commercial Motor Vehicles, 2002.
¹⁰ Longer and/or Longer and Heavier Goods Vehicles (LHVs) — A Study of the Likely Effects if Permitted in the UK: Final Report PPR285 cTRL, June 2008.
¹¹ Unit Costs of Medium and Heavy Truck Crashes, Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), December 2006.
¹² U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT), FHWA, Overweight Vehicles — Penalties and Permits: An Inventory of State Practices, March 1994.
¹³ Gongkang Fu, et al., Effect of Truck Weight on Bridge Network Costs, NCHRP Report 495, 2003; Bala Sivakumar, et al., Legal Truck Loads and AASHTO Legal Loads for Posting, NHCRP Report 575, 2007.
¹⁴ Effects of Increasing Truck Weights on Steel and Pre-Stressed Bridges — Final Report 2003-16, Minnesota Dept. of Transportation, March 2003; Estimating the Cost of Overweight Vehicle Travel on Arizona Roads, Final Report 528, Jan. 2006; Infrastructure Report Card 2005, American Society of Civil Engineers; Maine’s Roads and Bridges, The Road Information Program, 2005; Road and Bridge National Fact Sheet 2008, The Road Information Program, March 2008; Impacts of Overweight Trucks and Axle Weight Exemptions, North Carolina Dept. of Transportation, June 23, 2005; Transect, Impact of Heavy Trucks on Bridge Investment, Task B Revised Report for FHWA, Austin, TX, 1993; Mohammadi, J., et al., The Effect of Increased Truck Weights Upon Illinois Highway Bridges, Illinois University Transportation Research Consortium for the Illinois Department of Transportation and the FHWA, FHWA/IL/RC-013, Chicago, IL, 1991.
¹⁵ I.S Jones and H.S. Stein, “Defective Equipment and Tractor-Trailer crash Involvement,” Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Arlington, VA 1987, p.16 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2619856
¹⁶ FMCSA 2005, CVSA 2006
¹⁷ Large Truck Crash Causation Study Report to Congress, FMCSA, March 2006.
¹⁸ Jones and Stein, p. 474.
¹⁹ U.S. DOT FARS, 1975-1995; see DOT Traffic Safety Facts 1995, Table 3, Figure Z.
²⁰ Lake Research Partners., 2008. http://www.trucksafety.org/CRASH_press_release_1208.php
²¹ Tarrance Group, April 1996.
²² AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, Transportation, Research, and Marketing, “A Study of Operating Practices of Extra-long Vehicles,” Washington, D.C., December 1990, p.48.
²³ “An Operation Field Test of Long Combination Vehicles Using ABS and C-Dollies,” Vol. I Final Technical Report, UMTRI 95-94-1, November 1995, pp. 90-91, 93-95; see also California Department of Transportation, Longer Combination Vehicle Operation Test, March 1984, pp. iii and 24.
²⁴ Infra note 14.
²⁵ “Longer and/or Longer and Heavier Goods Vehicles . . .,” op. cit.