Overall injuries in large-truck crashes increase 5.3%

The estimated number of people injured in crashes involving large trucks — including truck occupants and nonoccupants — increased 5.3 percent to 159,000 in 2019, according to federal data released Friday.

Isolating the data for truck occupants alone, injuries jumped by 7,000 people, or 18%, to an estimated 46,000 people in 2019 over 2018, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported, including injuries for both single- and multiple-vehicle crashes.

Broken down further, NHTSA estimates show that between 2018 and 2019:

• Large-truck occupants injured in single-vehicle crashes increased 15% to 15,000.
• Large-truck occupants injured in multiple-vehicle crashes increased 15% to 30,000.
• Occupants of other vehicles injured in large-truck crashes increased 1.9% to 110,000.
• Nonoccupants (pedestrians, pedal cyclists) injured increased 33% to 4,000.

Injury crashes involving all vehicles increased 1.2% to 1.92 million in 2019 compared with 2018, according to NHTSA.

NHTSA’s injury data follows large-truck fatality data released by the agency in October that found fatalities in crashes involving at least one large truck in 2019 were virtually unchanged from the previous year, decreasing from 5,006 in 2018 to 5,005 in 2019. 

Large-truck occupant fatalities increased 0.2%, from 890 in 2018 to 892 in 2019, the data revealed. That compared to a 0.8% increase between 2017 and 2019.

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• Tech-enabled used truck trade-ins could boost road safety
• FMCSA plans large truck crash study

Click for more FreightWaves articles by John Gallagher.