The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is working to spread the message of how the general public can safely share the roads with large trucks.
FMCSA’s Our Roads, Our Safety Week launched Sunday, May 5 and continues through Saturday, May 11.
“Our Roads, Our Safety Week is a national, annual safety observance dedicated to raising awareness on how to share the road safely with large trucks and buses,” FMCSA wrote on its website. “Together with the larger safety community, FMCSA is committed to sharing safety tips, resources and materials that help improve road safety and reach zero roadway deaths.”
Educating the general public about how to operate safely around large vehicles is a large focus of the effort.
“Everyone on the road has a role to play,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said. “Let’s take this week to remind ourselves and our loved ones that large trucks and buses have huge blind spots, make wide turns and take longer to stop than passenger vehicles. We all share the road. Let’s renew our commitment to do it safely.”
Crash statistics
In 2022, nearly 6,000 people were killed in crashes involving large trucks.
However, it must be noted that truck drivers typically aren’t cited in these fatal crashes.
In 2021, FMCSA revealed numbers indicating that more than 90% of truckers involved in fatal crashes did not receive a moving violation. In 2017, the Ohio Department of Transportation said truckers are not to blame in 75% of fatal crashes. A report analyzing studies by the University of Michigan, NHTSA, AAA and FMCSA found that passenger vehicle drivers were assigned driving factors in fatal crashes involving large trucks at an extraordinarily higher rate than truckers.
“Large trucks and buses maneuver differently than other vehicles, and it’s critical we know how to operate around them safely,” FMCSA wrote.
Tips for drivers of passenger vehicles can be found here. LL
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