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Vehicles
This chapter presents information on large trucks involved in fatal, injury,
and property damage only crashes. Some of the data in this chapter come
from the MCMIS Crash File, which contains data on trucks and buses in crashes
that meet the SAFETYNET recommended threshold. MCMIS data are used for
the tables on crashes by vehicle configuration (Table 47), cargo body type
(Table 48), gross vehicle weight rating (Table 49), hazardous materials
cargo (Table 50), and hazardous materials released (Table 51). SAFETYNET
nonfatal crashes tend to be more serious than GES nonfatal crashes, because
the SAFETYNET threshold requires at least one injury involving immediate
medical attention away from the crash scene, or at least one vehicle disabled
as a result of the crash and transported away from the crash scene. In
this year’s report, two new tables focus on vehicle-related crash factors
for large trucks and passenger vehicles. Below is a summary of some of
the vehicle information in this section:
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In 2009, 3,215 large trucks were involved in fatal crashes, 53,000 were
involved in injury crashes, and 239,000 were involved in property damage
only crashes.
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Large trucks made up 7 percent of all vehicles in fatal crashes, 2 percent
of all vehicles in injury crashes, and 3 percent of all vehicles in property
damage only crashes.
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Hazardous materials (HM) placards were present on 3 percent of the large
trucks involved in fatal crashes and 2 percent of those in nonfatal crashes.
HM was released from the cargo compartments of 11 percent of the placarded
trucks.
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“Collision with vehicle in transport” was recorded as the most harmful
event for 75 percent of the large trucks involved in fatal crashes.
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Singles (truck tractors pulling a single semi-trailer) accounted for 61
percent of the large trucks involved in fatal crashes. Doubles (tractors
pulling two trailers) made up 3 percent of the large trucks involved in
fatal crashes. Triples (tractors pulling three trailers) accounted for
less than 0.1 percent of all large trucks involved in fatal crashes in 2009.
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Vehicle-related crash factors were coded for 5 percent of the large trucks
involved in fatal crashes and 4 percent of the passenger vehicles involved
in fatal crashes. Brake systems and tires were the two vehicle-related
factors most often coded for both vehicle types.
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