Large commercial trucks can cause devastating injuries and death due to their significant size and weight. New technology, however, may help make commercial trucks less dangerous to the motoring public.
According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, installing forward-collision warning and automatic emergency systems on heavy-duty vehicles could eliminate more than 40% of rear-end crashes involving large trucks.
Advanced driving systems technology is becoming more prevalent in the shipping industry. The technology includes forward-collision warning (FCW) and automatic emergency braking (AEB). The European Union started requiring FCW and AEB on most heavy-duty trucks beginning in 2013. However, it is still not required on any vehicle in the United States. Many manufacturers of U.S. cars have agreed to start adding these technologies by 2022 in an agreement between the IIHS and the National Highway Safety Administration. More corporations should ask for these safety technologies for their truck fleets as well.
The IIHS studied crash data from 62 commercial fleets operating tractor-trailers and trucks weighing at least 33,00 lbs. There were 22% fewer crashes with trucks that had front-crash prevention technology and 12% fewer crashes with automatic emergency braking systems.
Forward collision warning systems monitor and alert drivers to obstacles in the roadway. AEB systems go further by automatically applying the brakes to reduce the severity of a collision. A commercial tractor-trailer traveling down the highway carrying a sizable load has increased dangers for passenger vehicles, so installing these newer collision prevention technologies is vital.
The truck accident injury lawyers at Clark, Perdue & List are committed to holding trucking companies accountable when they fail to operate safely, causing harm to the motoring public.