Introduction
This annual edition of Large Truck Crash Facts (previously published by
the Federal Highway Administration, Office of Motor Carriers, as Large
Truck Crash Profile: The National Picture) contains descriptive statistics
about fatal, injury, and property damage only crashes involving large trucks
in 2001. Selected crash statistics on passenger vehicles are also presented
for comparison purposes.
Data Sources
The information in this report was compiled by the Analysis Division of
the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). The major sources
for the data are described below:
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Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). FARS, maintained by the National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), is a census of fatal crashes
involving motor vehicles traveling on public trafficways. FARS is recognized
as the most reliable national crash database, but it contains information
only on fatal crashes. A large truck is defined in FARS as a truck with
a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of more than 10,000 pounds.
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General Estimates System (GES). GES, also maintained by NHTSA, is a probability-based
nationally representative sample of all police-reported fatal, injury,
and property damage only crashes. The data from GES yield national estimates,
calculated using a weighting procedure, but cannot give State-level estimates.
Also, GES is a sample of motor vehicle crashes, and the results generated
are estimates. For this reason, all GES data shown in this report are rounded
to the nearest thousand. The GES definition of a large truck is the same
as the FARS definition.
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Motor Carrier Management Information System (MCMIS) Crash File. The MCMIS
Crash File, maintained by FMCSA, contains data on trucks and buses in crashes
that meet the National Governors Association (NGA) recommended threshold.
An NGA reportable crash must involve a truck (a vehicle that is designed,
used, or maintained primarily for carrying property and has at least two
axles and six tires) or a bus (a vehicle with seats for at least 9 people,
including the driver). The crash must result in either at least one fatality,
at least one injury for which the injured person was taken to a medical
facility for immediate medical attention, or at least one vehicle that
was towed from the scene as a result of disabling crash damage. The crashes
are reported by the States to FMCSA through the SAFETYNET computer software.
The MCMIS Crash File is intended to be a census of trucks and buses involved
in fatal, injury and towaway crashes; however, some States do not report
all NGA-eligible crashes. For 2001, States reported 91,027 trucks involved
in crashes through SAFETYNET to the MCMIS Crash File. Based on the 2001
GES data, an estimated 147,000 trucks were involved in crashes that should
have been reported. Thus, FMCSA received reports on about 62 percent of
the trucks involved in NGA-reportable crashes.
FARS, GES, and MCMIS describe the events and details of motor vehicle crashes,
but they do not include data on crash causation or fault.
Highway Statistics
Highway Statistics is an annual publication of the Office of Highway Policy
Information of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). State agencies
report the data, ranging from driver licensing to highway finance, and
FHWA aggregates them to get national totals. This report takes vehicle
miles traveled and vehicle registrations from Table VM-1, Annual Vehicle
Distance Traveled in Miles and Related Data of Highway Statistics.
Organization of the Report
This years report is organized into four chapters: Trends, Crashes, Vehicles,
and People. The Trends chapter shows data for 2001 in the context of available
historical data for past years. In the other chapters, the 2001 data are
shown in different ways, according to what is being counted. The Crashes
chapter counts numbers of crashes; the Vehicles chapter counts vehicles
in crashes; and the People chapter counts persons of all types involved
in crashes. Four different types of counts are shown:
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Crashes: Numbers of crashes involving various vehicle types.
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Vehicles in Crashes: Numbers of vehicles involved in crashes. These counts
may be larger than the number of crashes (fatal, injury, or property damage
only), because more than one vehicle may be involved in a single crash.
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People in Crashes: Numbers of people killed or injured in crashes. These
counts generally are larger than the number of crashes (fatal or injury),
because more than one person may be killed or injured in a single crash.
People killed or injured may be occupants of a truck, occupants of another
vehicle, or nonmotorists (pedestrians or pedalcyclists).
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Drivers in Crashes: Numbers of vehicle drivers involved in crashes. These
counts generally are equal to the numbers of vehicles involved in crashes.