A Comprehensive Study of Single and Multiple Truck Crashes UsingViolation and Crash Data

Abstract: Around 4,000 people died in crashes involving trucks in 2016 alone in the U.S., with 21 percent of these fatalitiesinvolving only single-unit trucks. Many studies have identified the underlying factors for truck crashes. However, few studiesdetected the factors unique to single and multiple crashes, and none have examined these underlying factors in conjunction withviolation data. The current research assessed all of these factors using two approaches to improve truck safety. An injury/fatal crashwas defined as a crash that results in an injury or fatality. The first approach investigated the contributory factors that increased theodds of injury/fatal single truck and multiple vehicle crashes with involvement of at least one truck. The literature has indicated thatprevious violations can be used to predict future violations and crashes. Therefore, the second approach used violations related todriver actions that could result in truck crashes. The analysis for the first approach indicated that driving on dry-roadway surfaces,driver distraction, and rollover/jackknife types of truck crashes, speed compliance failure, and higher posted speed limits are some ofthe factors that increased the odds of injury/fatal single and multiple vehicle crashes. With the second approach, the violations relatedto risky driver actions, which were underlying causes of truck crashes, were identified and analyses were run to identify the groups atincreased risk of truck involved crashes. The results of violations indicated that being nonresident, driving off peak hours, anddriving on weekends could increase the risk of truck involved crashes