Portland Personal Injury Law Blog

According to a study recently released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 32,885 people died in U.S. motor vehicle crashes last year. The good news is that number is down nearly three percent from the previous year. Unfortunately, those deaths involving commercial trucks have actually increased 8.7 percent.

There are various reasons for this, mostly due to the truck driver’s behavior, such as cell phone use, the pressures associated with meeting deadlines, and the long hours they put in each day on the road.

In an effort to improve current road safety standards, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has proposed a reduction in the number of hours that truck drivers are allowed to drive each day. Currently, trucking companies can require their drivers to be on the road for up to 11 hours in a 21 hour period. Over an eight day period, truck drivers can drive up to 88 hours, which is more than many people’s work time over a two week span!

According to FMCSA-sponsored studies, nearly 48 percent of drivers admitted they have fallen asleep while driving in the previous year. Think about that for a second: nearly every other truck driver admits to being unconscious at some point while driving! Thirteen percent of those surveyed admitted that it happened more than once (“sometimes” or even “often”). About 45 percent of drivers said they sometimes or often had trouble staying awake while driving and 65 percent reported they at least occasionally felt drowsy while driving.

When you consider the fact that these numbers come directly from the drivers’ mouths, it’s clear that driver fatigue continues to be a major safety problem that needs to be addressed.