NTSB Says Driver Fatigue at the Root of Fatal Oklahoma Truck Wreck

Image by C.P.Storm via FlickrThe National Transportation Safety Board has determined that driver fatigue stemming from acute sleep loss was to blame in a multi-vehicle crash that claimed 10 lives in Oklahoma last year.

On June 26, 2009, a truck driven by Donald L. Creed, 76, of Willard, Mo., plowed into a line of stopped vehicles on I-44 about 90 miles east of Tulsa, killing 10 vehicle occupants and injuring six others, including himself.

Federal investigators say the driver was suffering from fatigue caused by circadian disruption associated with the driver's work schedule. The NTSB says Creed likely had less than five hours of sleep prior to beginning his work shift at 3 a.m. At the time of the crash, he had been on the road for more than 10 hours. Creed, who suffers from mild sleep apnea, failed to react to slowing and stopped traffic. He never applied brakes or performed any evasive maneuvers to avoid colliding with the traffic queue, the NTSB noted in its crash report, released Tuesday.

Among factors cited by NTSB as contributing to the severity of the crash are the truck's high impact speed and its structural incompatibility with passenger vehicles. It was traveling at 69 mph in a 75-mph area.

Investigators identified several major safety issues associated with this crash, and has issued recommendations intended to prevent future occurrences, and to improve future crash investigations.

Among them:

* The need for updated and comprehensive fatigue education materials and fatigue management programs;

* The need for a better understanding of the significance of heavy vehicle collision forces in crashes with smaller vehicles.

* Mandate the installation of electronic and video event recorders on commercial motor vehicles over 10,000 pounds and set performance standards for those devices.

The NTSB also reiterated previous recommendations to develop standards and require deployment of collision warning systems on new commercial vehicles, to require energy-absorbing under-ride protection for trucks, and to develop technologies to reduce fatigue-related accidents. In total, the NTSB issued nine new and six reiterated safety recommendations with this report.

http://www.truckinginfo.com/news/news-detail.asp?news_id=71776

Georgia Trucking Lawyers and Georgia Truck Accidents: Q and A

Image via Wikipedia

Some concerns answered:

Do large trucks have high crash rates?

On average, drivers of large trucks travel many more miles than passenger vehicle drivers. In 2007, large trucks accounted for 4 percent of registered vehicles and 7 percent of miles traveled. Per unit of travel, large trucks are involved in more fatal crashes than passenger vehicles – 1.9 compared with 1.6 crashes per 100 million miles traveled in 2006.

The disparities between large trucks and passenger vehicles vary by specific vehicle type, with cars having the lowest fatal crash rate (1.3) and tractor-trailers having the highest rate (2.2). The higher fatal crash rate for large trucks occurs although much higher proportions of their miles are traveled on interstate highways, which are the safest roads. The higher fatal crash rate is attributable to the size disparity between large trucks and passenger vehicles. Large trucks have a much lower rate per mile traveled of nonfatal crashes resulting in injuries or property damage only compared with passenger cars and light trucks.




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