VEHICLE CONDITION AND HEAVY TRUCK ACCIDENT INVOLVEMENT

Roughly 5,000 medium and heavy trucks are involved in fatal traffic accidents each year; on average, roughly 5,400 people are killed in those accidents. It is often presumed that the mechanical condition of trucks contributes to this toll, either through a failure that directly led to a collision or because a truck could not maneuver to avoid the collision due to mechanical defects. Roadside inspections to identify and eliminate mechanical defects in trucks are part of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's strategy to reduce the number of traffic accidents involving trucks and consequent fatalities. Every year, the Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program (MCSAP) allocates funds to the states to support roadside inspection programs to identify trucks with mechanical defects and remove them from the road. Yet the critical linkage of mechanical defects and accident involvement has not been thoroughly studied. A major obstacle to studying the relationship between vehicle condition and accident involvement has been a lack of reliable data on trucks involved in traffic accidents. This paper presents a study to remedy that lack of reliable data.