Safety and Crashes
Through Utah’s Zero Fatalities and Truck Smart programs, we are striving to eliminate fatality and severe injury crashes. In an analysis of 2019, 2020, and 2021 crashes, we have experienced 91 fatal crashes and 232 severe injury crashes for a total of 323 crashes over the past three years. Safety and crashes and directely related.
Doing all the things you have been trained to do as a professional driver will certainly protect you and those driving around you. About 75% of commercial vehicle crashes are caused by the passenger vehicle, not the professional driver. However, that still leaves 25% of crashes that could have been prevented if the professional driver was following their training.
Here are a few statistics that may be of value to you as you strive to get to your destination safely and protect those driving around you. Hopefully, these numbers will alert you to areas you should be concerned about and tailor your driving habits accordingly.
of these 323 crashes occurred on dry roads. Only 52 crashes (18%) occurred on wet, snowy, slushy or icy roads.
210 happened in clear conditions while just 43 or 13% happened while it was snowy, raining, or windy.
of the crashes were during daylight hours, 20% in dark, not lighted areas, and 8% in dark, lighted roadways.
of the crashes involved just the professional driver/commercial vehicle (82 crashes, 72 of those left the roadway). Of those, 55 were rollover crashes and 20 were trucks that struck a barrier or another object, not another vehicle. 34 crashes were head-on crashes.
Driver
behaviors are a big factor in fatal/severe crashes. 78 involved speeding, 57 were DUI, 25 occurred because the driver was distracted and 18 drivers were driving drowsy.
of the crashes involved an intersection collision, so paying attention is necessary to avoid the crashes.
