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Large Truck and Bus Crash Facts 2014

This online edition of Large Truck and Bus Crash Facts provides Excel files containing data for each of the report's data tables and graphs. A printable version of the complete report is also available.

Contents

Note: Data Revisions. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) implemented an enhanced methodology for estimating registered vehicles and vehicle miles traveled by vehicle type beginning with data from 2007. As a result, involvement rates may differ, and in some cases significantly, from earlier years.

Introduction

This annual edition of Large Truck and Bus Crash Facts contains descriptive statistics about fatal, injury, and property damage only crashes involving large trucks and buses in 2014. 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:

  • 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) greater than 10,000 pounds. A bus is defined in FARS as any motor vehicle designed primarily to transport nine or more persons, including the driver. The 2014 FARS data are considered preliminary for one year. This additional time provides the opportunity for submission of important variable data requiring outside sources, which may lead to changes in the final counts. The updated final counts for 2013 are reflected in this report. Updated final counts for 2014 will be reflected in the 2015 annual report. For more information on FARS, go to www.nhtsa.gov/FARS.
  • General Estimates System (GES). GES, also maintained by NHTSA, is a probability-based nationally representative sample of 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. Because GES is a sample of motor vehicle crashes, the results generated are estimates rounded to the nearest one thousand; however, associated percentages and rates are based on the unrounded data. The GES definitions of a large truck and a bus are the same as the FARS definitions. For more information on GES, go to www.nhtsa.gov/NASS.
  • 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 SAFETYNET recommended threshold. A SAFETYNET reportable crash must involve a truck, used for commercial purposes, with a GVWR or gross combination weight rating greater than 10,000 pounds; a commercial bus designed to transport nine or more persons, including the driver; or any vehicle carrying hazardous material that requires placarding, regardless of the vehicle’s weight. The crash must result in at least one fatality, at least one injury involving immediate medical attention away from the crash scene, or at least one vehicle disabled as a result of the crash and transported away from the crash scene. 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 FMCSA-eligible crashes, and some report more than those that are eligible. FMCSA continues to work with the States to improve data quality and reporting of eligible large truck and bus crashes to the MCMIS crash file.

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 (VMT) and vehicle registrations from Table VM-1 of Highway Statistics, “Annual Vehicle Distance Traveled in Miles and Related Data.” Readers are warned to be careful of crash rate data based on the VMT numbers from FHWA. Beginning with data for 2007, FHWA implemented an enhanced methodology for estimating registered vehicles and VMT by vehicle type. The new methodology did not change the total VMT, but it did make a large difference in the number of miles traveled attributed to large trucks and buses. As a result, it would be misleading to cite large truck and bus data trends that encompassed both the years before 2007 and the years following. For more information on VMT data, go to www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2014.

Organization of the Report

The report is organized into four chapters: Trends, Crashes, Vehicles, and People. The Trends chapter shows data for 2014 in the context of available historical data for past years. In the other chapters, the 2014 data are shown in different ways, according to what is being counted. Three-year trends in fatal crashes are presented for historical perspective when appropriate. 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:

  • Crashes: Numbers of crashes involving various vehicle types.
  • 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.
  • 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).
  • Drivers in Crashes: Numbers of vehicle drivers involved in crashes. These counts generally are equal to the numbers of vehicles involved in crashes.

Trends

The tables in this chapter present crash statistics for large trucks and buses over time. Fatal crash statistics generally are available from 1975, the first year of FARS data, through 2014. In some cases, such as for roadway function class or alcohol involvement, data are available only from 1981 or 1982 through 2014. Nonfatal crash statistics are presented for 1994 through 2014. The statistics shown in this chapter represent crashes, vehicles, drivers, fatalities, and injuries in crashes. Below is a summary of some of the trend information in this section:

  • In 2014, 3,978 large trucks and buses were involved in fatal crashes, a 5-percent decrease from 2013. From 2013 to 2014, large truck and bus fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled by all motor vehicles decreased by 4 percent, from 0.143 to 0.138.
  • There was a 33-percent decrease in the number of fatal crashes involving large trucks or buses between 2004 and 2009, followed by an increase of 20 percent between 2009 and 2013. From 2013 to 2014, the number of fatal crashes involving large trucks or buses decreased by 4.5 percent.
  • The number of injury crashes involving large trucks or buses decreased steadily from 95,000 in 2004 to 60,000 in 2009 (a decline of 37 percent). This decline was followed by an increase of 55 percent from 2009 to 2014.
  • On average, from 2004 to 2014, intercity buses accounted for 13 percent, and school buses and transit buses accounted for 41 percent and 33 percent, respectively, of all buses involved in fatal crashes.
  • Over the past year (from 2013 to 2014):
    • The number of large trucks involved in fatal crashes decreased by 5 percent, from 3,921 to 3,744, and the large truck involvement rate (large trucks involved in fatal crashes per 100 million miles traveled by large trucks) declined by 6 percent, from 1.43 to 1.34.
    • The number of large trucks involved in injury crashes increased by 21 percent, from 73,000 to 88,000, and the large truck involvement rate in injury crashes increased by 21 percent.
    • The number of large trucks involved in property damage only crashes increased by 31 percent, from 265,000 to 346,000, and the large truck involvement rate in property damage only crashes increased by 29 percent.
    • The number of buses involved in fatal crashes decreased from 282 to 234, a decrease of 17 percent, and the bus involvement rate in fatal crashes decreased by 21 percent.
    • Vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by large trucks increased by 1.5 percent, and bus VMT increased by 5.5 percent.

Detailed List of Tables and Figures from Chapter 1 (Trends):

Crashes

This chapter contains information on the circumstances of large truck crashes. Below is a summary of some of the information in this section:

  • Of the approximately 411,000 police-reported crashes involving large trucks in 2014, 3,424 (1 percent) resulted in at least one fatality, and 82,000 (20 percent) resulted in at least one nonfatal injury.
  • Single-vehicle crashes (including crashes that involved a bicyclist, pedestrian, nonmotorized vehicle, etc.) made up 21 percent of all fatal crashes, 14 percent of all injury crashes, and 23 percent of all property damage only crashes involving large trucks in 2014. The majority (63 percent) of fatal large truck crashes involved two vehicles.
  • Approximately 61 percent of all fatal crashes involving large trucks occurred on rural roads and 26 percent on rural or urban Interstate highways.
  • Thirty-seven percent of all fatal crashes, 19 percent of all injury crashes, and 20 percent of all property damage only crashes involving large trucks occurred at night (6:00 pm to 6:00 am).
  • The vast majority of fatal crashes (84 percent) and nonfatal crashes (88 percent) involving large trucks occurred on weekdays (Monday through Friday).
  • Collision with a vehicle in transport was the first harmful event (the first event during a crash that resulted in injury or property damage) in 73 percent of fatal crashes involving large trucks, 83 percent of injury crashes involving large trucks, and 75 percent of property damage only crashes involving large trucks.
  • Overturn (rollover) was the first harmful event in 5 percent of all fatal crashes involving large trucks and 2 percent of all nonfatal crashes involving large trucks.
  • In 2014, 30 percent of work zone fatal crashes and 9 percent of work zone injury crashes involved at least one large truck.
  • There were 10.7 fatal large truck crashes per million people in the United States in 2014, a 1-percent increase from 2010.
  • On average, there were 1.14 fatalities in fatal crashes involving large trucks. In the majority of those crashes (90 percent), there was only one fatality.

Detailed List of Tables from Chapter 2 (Crashes):

Vehicles

This chapter presents information on large trucks involved in fatal, injury, and property damage only crashes. Some of the data in this chapter come from the MCMIS Crash File, which contains data on trucks and buses in crashes that meet the SAFETYNET crash severity thresholds. MCMIS data are used for the tables on crashes by vehicle configuration (Vehicles Tables 1 and 2), cargo body type (Vehicles Tables 3 and 4), gross vehicle weight rating (Vehicles Tables 5 and 6), hazardous materials cargo (Vehicles Tables 8 and 9), and hazardous materials released (Vehicles Tables 10 and 11). SAFETYNET nonfatal crashes tend to be more serious than GES nonfatal crashes, because the SAFETYNET threshold requires at least one injury involving immediate medical attention away from the crash scene, or at least one vehicle disabled as a result of the crash and transported away from the crash scene. Below is a summary of some of the vehicle information in this section:

  • In 2014, 3,744 large trucks were involved in fatal crashes, 88,000 were involved in injury crashes, and 346,000 were involved in property damage only crashes.
  • Hazardous materials (HM) placards were present on 3 percent of the large trucks involved in fatal crashes and 2 percent of those in nonfatal crashes. HM was released from the cargo compartments of 12 percent of the placarded trucks in fatal and nonfatal crashes. Flammable liquids (gasoline, fuel oil, etc.) accounted for 49 percent of the HM releases from cargo compartments in fatal crashes and 57 percent of the HM releases in nonfatal crashes.
  • "Collision with vehicle in transport" was recorded as the most harmful event for 73 percent of the large trucks involved in fatal crashes.
  • Singles (truck tractors pulling a single semi-trailer) accounted for 63 percent of the large trucks involved in fatal crashes in 2013; doubles (tractors pulling two trailers) made up 2 percent of the large trucks involved in fatal crashes; and triples (tractors pulling three trailers) accounted for 0.1 percent of all large trucks involved in fatal crashes.
  • Vehicle-related factors were coded for 6 percent of the large trucks involved in fatal crashes and 3 percent of the passenger vehicles involved in fatal crashes. “Tires” and “Other Working Vehicle” were the most common vehicle-related factors for large trucks in fatal crashes, at 1.3 percent each. “Tires” also was the most frequently coded vehicle-related factor for passenger vehicles in fatal crashes, at 1.4 percent.

Detailed List of Tables from Chapter 3 (Vehicles):

People

This chapter contains information on drivers of large trucks in fatal, injury, and property damage only crashes and on people killed or injured in large truck crashes. Some statistics for passenger vehicle drivers are also listed, to allow comparisons. It is important to note that the number of large truck drivers in crashes is not exactly equal to the number of large trucks in crashes, because for some crashes no driver information is provided. Below is a summary of some of the information in this section:

  • Of the 3,697 drivers of large trucks involved in fatal crashes in 2014, 202 (5 percent) were 25 years of age or younger, and 216 (6 percent) were 66 years of age or older. In comparison, 8 (3 percent) of the 232 drivers of buses in fatal crashes were 25 years of age or younger, and 35 (15 percent) were 66 years of age or older.
  • About 2 percent of all the drivers of large trucks involved in fatal crashes in 2014 were female, compared with 30 percent of all drivers of buses involved in fatal crashes.
  • Of the 3,697 drivers of large trucks involved in fatal crashes in 2014, 335 (9 percent) were not wearing a safety belt at the time of the crash; of those, 30 percent were completely or partially ejected from the vehicle.
  • In 2014, at least one driver-related factor was recorded for 34 percent of the large truck drivers in fatal crashes, compared to 58 percent of the passenger vehicle drivers in fatal crashes. “Speeding of Any Kind” was the most frequent driver-related factor for drivers of both vehicle types; “Distraction/Inattention” was the second most common for large truck drivers, and “Impairment (Fatigue, Alcohol, Illness, etc.)” was the second most common for passenger vehicle drivers.
  • There were 657 large truck occupant fatalities in 2014, of which 90 percent were drivers of large trucks and 10 percent were passengers in large trucks.

Detailed List of Tables from Chapter 4 (People):

Updated: Friday, April 15, 2016
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