The Large Truck Crash Causation Study: driver action or inaction was the critical reason in 88% of sampled crashes. Weather is not the usual villain

What the notice actually said

The study counted 967 fatal or injury crashes at 24 sites in 17 states, April 2001 through December 2003. 1,127 large trucks, 959 other vehicles, 251 deaths, 1,408 injuries. That is the Large Truck Crash Causation Study sample, not a blog statistic about our fleet.

Critical reason: driver of the truck or the other vehicle ten times more often than weather, road, or vehicle. Eighty-eight percent critical reason equals action or inaction by a driver. It is not a claim that truckers caused 88 percent. The other driver is in the same 88 percent.

Sandberg’s line: spend more time on driver behavior and on whether the truck is fit. That is still the inspection theory. Vehicle defects matter; they were not the usual critical reason in this sample. Weather is not never — it was not the usual critical reason.

Critical reason is the last failure in the crash chain in LTCCS coding — not the only contributing factor. Behavior still wins over “it was raining.”

First national pre-crash-factor study of its kind at the time. Newer data exists; this is the original newsroom piece. Our crash is still a police report plus a preventability process, not an 88 percent caption.

What it changes on Monday

We hire behavior we can see: PSP, road test, Clearinghouse. We maintain Volvos. We do not sell “the study says it is never the truck.”

Preventability companion: the 2019 proposal. Hire stack: PSP and Drive With Us.

Safety owns the file. A broker quoting 88 percent as “trucks cause it” has misread the sample. Send them this page.

Phone +1 (847) 702-8181 if the question is our crash, not the 2001–2003 national study.

What we will — and will not — do

We will hire behavior we can see and maintain the truck. We will not sell “88 percent means it is never the truck,” and we will not paste the sample onto a four-wheeler-only story.

We will not treat weather as the usual villain because a shipper prefers that caption. The study’s critical-reason finding is behavior first.

Safety file. +1 (847) 702-8181. Human on the desk. Our crash is a police report, not a national percentage.