NHTSA

Tech is your co-pilot. What’s changed?

SCHAUMBURG, IL - Advanced driver assistance systems like the ones that sound an alarm if you're tailgating -- or even apply vehicle brakes automatically -- are proving themselves to be more than a novelty. Schneider has already equipped 12,000 of its trucks with autonomous emergency braking systems that will act if a crash seems imminent. Related collisions have now dropped by 69% and their severity has plunged 95%, says Thomas DiSalvi, the fleet's vice president - safety and loss prevention. "This is ready for prime time." The underlying technologies have clearly come a long way, according to participants in a roundtable hosted this week by the U.S. National Safety Council.

U.S. fatalities in truck crashes up slightly in 2013

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Fatal crashes involving large trucks were up slightly from 2012 to 2013, according to numbers crunched by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Although fewer truck occupants were killed in crashes (691 in 2013, compared to 697 in 2012), and fewer occupants of other vehicles too, there was a spike in the deaths of non-occupants, leading to an overall 0.5% increase in the number of people killed in crashes involving large trucks. According to the NHTSA report, which you can read here http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/812101.pdf , the number of non-occupants killed during a large-truck crash increased by 13 percent (49 people) from 2012 to 2013.