'This'achievement is great for all highway users,' said Bill Graves, President and CEO of the American Trucking Associations (ATA). 'We must build upon this and look toward long-term improvements. The trucking industry remains committed to safety and ATA will continue to advance its aggressive safety agenda in an effort to further this outstanding trend.'
In addition to a 12% reduction in crash fatalities involving large trucks, the number of truck occupant deaths decreased 16% in 2008, from 805 in 2007 to 677. The overall number of people killed in motor vehicle crashes in the United States decreased 9.7% from 41,259 in 2007 to 37,261 in 2008, the lowest level since 1961.
Programs dedicated to increasing the use of safety belts, coupled with new hours-of-service regulations, which took effect in 2005, have greatly improved highway safety. The truck-involved fatality rate is now at its lowest since the US Department of Transportation began keeping those statistics in 1975.
ATA's 18-point safety agenda will further reduce the number of highway-related fatalities and injuries for all drivers on the nation's highways. ATA's policies include promoting greater safety belt use by commercial drivers; re-instituting a national maximum speed limit; improved truck crashworthiness standards; speed governing of all trucks; tax incentives for safety technologies; and a decade-long initiative to create a national clearinghouse for drug and alcohol test results. (ATA)
