Single-Unit Straight Trucks in Traffic Crashes

Highlights Data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and General Estimates System (GES) show that, in 2011, about 3 percent of fatal crashes, 1.7 percent of injury crashes, and 2 percent of property-damage-only (PDO) crashes involved single-unit trucks (SUTs). Crashes involving SUTs killed 1,064 people and injured about 38,000 people. Additionally, about 87,000 SUTs were involved in crashes that resulted in major property damage. Most of the people who died or received injuries in SUT crashes were occupants of other vehicles, bicyclists, or pedestrians rather than the occupants of SUTs. In the majority of fatal, injury, and PDO crashes, the first property-damaging or injury-producing event was an SUT’s collision with another vehicle on the roadway or in motion, rather than with a fixed or non-fixed object. Such a collision was also the most harmful event, i.e., the event that caused the most severe property damage or injury, in a large majority of fatal, injury, and PDO crashes. Rollover of an SUT was not a common occurrence.