Fatal truck accidents, according to a recent report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, are most likely to occur in the state of North Dakota. That conclusion was reached by looking at 2012 crash data from each state and measuring it against the total vehicle population.
While Texas came out as having the greatest total number of truck fatalities, a number of more rural states ranked above it when considering the number proportionally. The states falling below North Dakota are Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, West Virginia, and Indiana. On the other end of the spectrum were states like Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Connecticut. Florida fell somewhere in the middle.
Because of the size and speed that large trucks travel at, truck accidents present serious risk to other motorists on the road. Federal regulators have attempted to address the problem by holding trucking companies and their drivers to strict safety standards.
One of the more recent attempts was to tweak the federal hours-of-service rules, which govern how long a trucker can remain behind the wheel without getting a break. The new rule was not very welcome in the trucking industry as a whole, partly because it was predicted to result in reduced productivity. Still, truckers are bound by the rules.
Truckers who cause an accident through failure to abide by federal safety regulations deserve to be held accountable for their actions. Victims do well to work with an experienced personal injury attorney who will zealously advocate for their interests.
Source: Cars.com, “Where Are You Most Likely to Die in a Truck Crash?,” Matt Schmitz, March 3, 2014.