Equipping large trucks with advanced safety technologies could prevent up to 63,000 crashes each year, according to new research from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.
In 2015, large trucks were involved in more than 400,000 crashes that resulted in more than 4,000 deaths and 116,000 injuries — a 4% percent increase from 2014.
“There’s no question that truck safety technology saves lives,” said Dr. David Yang, executive director of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. “This new research shows that the benefits of adding many of these technologies to trucks clearly outweigh the cost.”
The report, “Leveraging Large Truck Technology and Engineering to Realize Safety Gains”, examines the safety benefits and costs of installing four advanced safety technologies in both existing and new large trucks: lane departure warning systems; automatic emergency braking; air disc brakes; and video-based onboard safety monitoring systems.
Researchers found that video-based onboard safety monitoring systems could prevent as many as 63,000 crashes, 17,733 injuries and 293 deaths each year.
