Short-haul trucks and driver fatigue

This report has two main objectives. The first is to present data that may be used to create a definition of short-haul trucks in computerized data files. The second is to examine the prevalence of driver fatigue as coded in crash data files and relate it to parameters that define short-haul trucking operations. Tabulations were made of the numbers of large trucks registered in the United States and their annual travel using data from the 1992 Truck Inventory and Use Survey. Truck crash statistics were derived from the 1991-1993 Trucks Involved in Fatal Accidents file and, to a lesser extent, 1995 SafetyNet data. These tabulations were cross-classified by gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) class, area of operation and vehicle type, and crash involvement rates per truck and per mile were generated. Three possible definitions of short-haul trucks are proposed and the different definitions are compared in terms of percentage of registered trucks and miles traveled, fatal crash involvements, fatal involvement rates per truck and per mile, and prevalence of fatigue-related fatal crash involvements. The results may assist others in making decisions about hours of service regulations for the short-haul segment of the trucking industry.