Car and Trucks Don't Always Mix

Truckers often complain about the four-wheelers. That is you and I in our personal automobiles. Trucking accidents were down in 2004 by the number of miles driven per accident. However they were slightly up as 11% more trucks are on the road because the economy picked up and more products had to be delivered to the consumer, that's us too.

This is a huge issue of cars mixing with truck traffic and it has been studied to death. Probably due to the deaths, which can result. 

I can tell you having driven some 500,000 miles around the country in a 72 Foot Indy Car Truck and Trailer that when you are on the open highway and you separate the speeds of cars and trucks by too much for example trucks drive 55 and cars drive 70 you are asking for an accident to happen. There are many places in this country where the speed differentials are like this.

What happens is that cars try to pass at bad times adjust for the trucks and end up causing an accident.

Did you know more traffic deaths are caused going up hills than down hills? Why? Due to the severe speed differential, slow vehicles, such as trucks and fast vehicles trying to pass or adjust and fit in between cars moving in faster lanes, many of these accidents are rear collisions or partial rear collisions. 

These are among some of the most severe accidents. Trucking is very proactive in their safety innovations as well; due to the previously discussed insurance costs. A new warning system will soon be located on trucks to warn them of an impending rollover risk. The devise will be activated either by transponder on the roadway or roadside service vehicles. It is possible that the 15,000 truck rollovers per year will be cut by over 45%. One thing we must realize is when we make rules to help in aspects of safety the must not slow the flow of traffic or transportation. They should solve both problems, improve flow and improve safety.

Recently in the last five years many state DOTs have sponsored the "No Zone" Safe truck campaign to alert us four-wheelers in cars, mini vans and SUVs that trucks have blind spots just like cars only way bigger. This mass media campaign is said to have cut the number of deaths on our highways by 6,000 per year, simply by waking people up about driving around trucks. Think about it.