Heavy Truck Accident Causation


Book Description










Large-Truck Crash Causation Study


Book Description

The Large-Truck Crash Causation Study (LTCCS) is a data collection project conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) of the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT). NHTSA's National Center for Statistics and Analysis (NCSA) worked together with FMCSA to develop the LTCCS, which was conducted within the National Automotive Sampling System (NASS) that NCSA operates. The tables in this report were created through the use of the data collected in the LTCCS. While the LTCCS collected data on approximately 1,000 variables, the tables presented in this report comprise only a sample of these variables. The complete LTCCS variable database can be used jointly to examine a large number of issues surrounding large-truck crashes. One section in the report focuses on “crash-level” variables, which provide counts of crashes that occurred under certain characteristics (i.e., crash counts stratified according to how many vehicles were in the crash). The next section includes tables that are presented at the “vehicle level.” These tables thus provide counts of the number of vehicles involved in certain types of crashes (i.e., vehicle counts that have been stratified by the injury severity of the person most severely injured in each vehicle). The tables in the following section are presented at the “driver level.” These tables display counts of drivers that were involved in certain crash scenarios (i.e., the number of drivers involved in the crashes, stratified by the age of the driver). The appendix includes tables and computer programs for calculating standard errors and confidence intervals using LTCCS data.













Truck Weight Limits


Book Description

To help assess proposals for further changes in federal truck weight limits, Congress requested this study through Section 158 of the Surface Transportation and Uniform Relocation Assistance Act of 1987. To conduct the study, the National Research Council convened a special Transportation Research Board committee with experts in pavements, bridges, highway safety, freight transportation economics, motor vehicle design, highway administration, motor carrier operations, and enforcement of motor vehicle regulations. The study focused on four issues identified in the study request that involve potential changes to federal weight limits for Interstate highways: (1) Elimination of existing grandfather provisions; (2) Alternative methods for determining gross vehicle weight and axle loadings; (3) Adequacy of the current federal bridge formula; and (4) Treatment of specialized hauling vehicles--garbage trucks, dump trucks, and other trucks with short wheel bases that have difficulty complying with the current federal bridge formula. For each of these issues, the study committee estimated the nationwide effects of changes in federal limits proposed by the trucking industry, highway agencies, and other groups. Projections of heavy-truck miles by type of truck, region of the country, highway functional class, and operating weight were developed for a base case and alternative truck weight regulatory scenarios. These projections were then used to estimate impacts on truck costs, pavements, bridges, and safety.